BANGLADESHGroup 1

WHERE IS IT?

South Asia

Bordered with India to its west, north and east, Burma to its south east and

WHAT ARE THE PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS OF BANGLADESH?

Bangladesh is a low-lying country located in South Asia with a largely marshy jungle coastline of 710 km.

It is formed by a delta plain at the confluence of the Ganges, Brahmaputra, and Meghna River, Bangladesh's alluvial soil is highly fertile, but vulnerable to flood and drought.

Bangladesh has a tropical monsoon climate characterized by heavy seasonal rainfall, high temperatures, and high humidity.

Natural disasters, such as floods, tornadoes, and tidal bores affect the country yearly.

Bangladesh also is affected by major cyclones, on average 16 times a decade

Bangladesh had a small hilly region crossed by swiftly flowing rivers.

Roughly 80% of the landmass is made up of fertile alluvial lowland called the Bangladesh Plain.

Although altitudes up to 105 meters above sea level occur in the northern part of the plain, most elevations are less than 10 meters above sea level

10,000 square kilometers of the total area of Bangladesh is covered with water

About 67% of Bangladesh's nonurban land is arable. Permanent crops cover only 2%, meadows and pastures cover 4%, and forests and woodland cover about 16%.

WHAT ARE THE HUMAN CHARACTERISTICS OF BANGLADESH?

Population of 156.6 million

10 million people live in slums

Birth rate: 30.01 births/1,000 population

Death rate: 8.4 deaths/1,000 population

Life Expectancy: male: 62.13 years female: 62.02 years

GROUP 2By Sam, Archie and Naomi

WHY DOES BANGLADESH SUFFER FROM FLOODING?

The land is very flat, 85% of it is less than 1 metre above sea level.

In the hot seasons, the snow in the Himalaya's melts and flows down into the rivers causing sea levels to rise

Deforestation in the North of Bangladesh prevents interception and transpiration of the water before it can reach the river.

WHY DOES BANGLADESH SUFFER FROM FLOODING?

Bangladesh also has three major rivers; Ganges, Meghan and Brahmaputra running through it, so there is a lot of water in Bangladesh even when it is not flooding.

Being next to the Himalaya's also causes excess rainfall. The baked ground in Bangladesh coupled with the effects of urbanisation (concrete where there was dirt) can make it impermeable, leaving a lot of surface water.

There is intense rainfall during the Monsoon at Summer.

WHEN HAS FLOODING OCCURRED?

In the 19th century, six major floods were recorded:

1842

1858

1871

1875

1885

1892

WHEN HAS FLOODING OCCURRED?

Eighteen major floods occurred in the 20th century.

Those of 1987, 1988 and 1951 were of catastrophic consequence

More recent floods include 2004 and 2010.

CAUSES OF THE FLOOD IN 1998By Lauren Gardner, Alice Wembridge and Georgie Poyntz

PHYSICAL FACTORS THAT CONTRIBUTED

• FLOOD PLAIN AND DELTA

• HIMALAYAS

• WEATHER

HUMAN FACTORS THAT CONTRIBUTED

• DEFORESTATION

• URBANISATION

This city is on the edge of a river increasing the risk of a flood.

• GLOBAL WARMING

• DAMS AND EMBANKMENTS

GROUP 4- SOCIAL, ENVIRONMENTAL AND ECONOMIC EFFECTSImi W, Imogen F, Fin H

Social Effects• 30 million people were

made homeless• Death toll= 1000+• The flooding caused

contamination of crops and animals and unclean water resulted in cholera and typhoid outbreaks (diseases)

• Few hospitals were functional because of damage from the flooding and those that were had too many patients, resulting in everyday injuries becoming fatal due to lack of treatment

• Lack of communication-less people could get help

Environmental Effects• 50% of the land flooded

• Global warming melted ice glaciers increasing the sea level

• Deforestation• Soft soil erodes• Food supplies affected-

flooding destroyed rice stocks with a total of 668, 529 hectares of crops destroyed

ECONOMIC EFFECTS• The economy had a

decrease of 20% in production

• 400 factories forced to close-increased unemployment

• Flood cost the country almost $1 billion

• Profit lost due to rice crops destroyed and ½ million cattle and poultry were lost

BANGLADESH FLOOD2004-CAUSES

Group 5 – causes

HUMAN CAUSES Global Warming leading to sea level rise – melting glaciers

The extraction of groundwater for irrigation had lowered the water table and caused the land to subside by about 2.5m.

Large deforestation in flood prone areas

Increased are of cities – hard surfaces cause more surface runoff, higher peak flow and shorter lag time

Populatioand land use in Himalayas cause increased flooding in Bangladeshn increase puts higher demand on land – deforestation

Dam burst in Lake Tsatitsu, Bhutan in the Himalayas – higher volume of water from deforestation in Himalayas and silt flow

Lake Tsatitsudam

Population increase in Bangladesh major cities

NATURAL CAUSES The Brahmaputra river, swollen by rain and a Himalayan burst dam, has flooded north India and Bangladesh.

In late-June 2004, heavy monsoon rains swelled the waters of the MeghnaRiver, which reached its peak level in early-July. The other riversburst their banks in early-July, due to heavy rains in the north of the country, causing flash floods.

Four days of constant rain have caused floods in parts of Bangladesh.

Himalayan snow melt - Gangotri glacier, in the Indian Himalayas, feeds the Ganges river.

Relief Rainfall in the Himalayan Mountains feeds the rivers

Roughly 80% of the landmass is made up of fertile alluvial lowlandcalled the Bangladesh Plain. This means that it is prone to severe and heavy flooding.

Most of Bangladesh is below 10 metres above sea level

EFFECTS ON BANGLADESH’S

FLOODING IN 2004 By Kelsie, Chloe and Emily

EFFECTS ON THE PEOPLE Approximately 800 people died overall, and 36 million people were made homeless. People died as a result of disease because they had no access to clean water.

Landless labourers and small farmers were the most severely affected in rural areas (washing away all crops produced.

In the urban areas it was typically the slum dwellers squatting on poorly drained land who suffered the most.

Showing peoples homes in Dhaka is being flooded and the are having to evacuate

EFFECTS ON THE ECONOMY

Over 900 bridges destroyed which led to major transport disruptions, Flood also caused serious damage to infrastructure, embankments, railway lines, irrigation systems

15,000km road damaged

All domestic and internal flights had to be suspended during July

Crops lost leading to food shortages

Financial losses for businesses and shops

Value of damage was assessed as being $2.2

Offices like these were damaged and have had to be left

EFFECTS ON THE ENVIRONMENT

During July and August approximately 38% of the total land area was flooded including 800,000 ha of agricultural land

Dhaka (Capital of Bangladesh) Floods caused river bank erosion especially on embankment areas close to the main channels, soil erosion, water-logging, water contamination

2007 BANGLADESH FLOODS

PHYSICAL CAUSES

• 10% of the land is made up of lakes or rivers.

• Many tropical storms bring heavy rain and lots of flooding.

• The main cause was a heavy rainfall that caused 3 rivers to all have their peak flow at the same time.

• 70% of Bangladesh is less than 1 metre above sea level.

• The melt water from the Himalayas also contribute.

• 80% of the country lies on a huge flood plain and delta.

• Cyclones frequently hit Bangladesh.

HUMAN CAUSES • Deforestation in the Himalayas adds to deposition and flooding downstream.

• Urbanisation of the flood plain has increased magnitude and frequency of floods.

• Global warming contributes to the sea level rise.

• Poorly looked after embankments leak and collapse in times when there is a high discharge.

• Bangladesh is a very poor country therefore they can’t pay for flood defence systems.

EFFECTS OF THE 2007 FLOODGroup 8(Izzy, Ellie and ..Louis)

EFFECTS ON PEOPLE At least 10.5 million people were estimated to have been displaced or marooned by the floods. 30 million across the whole South Asia region

The monsoon flooding killed over 1,100 people in Bangladesh, and according to Forbes over 2000 people were killed across the South Asia region.

By 11 August, the number of people with flood-related diseases was increasing and about 100,000 people had caught dysentery or diarrhoea

The Bangladeshi health Department said that the deaths were caused by Diarrhoea, drowning, landslides, snakebites and respiratory diseases.

46 of the country’s 64 districts were flooded in this flood event

EFFECTS ON ECONOMY 2.2 million acres of damaged cropland

$290 million of crops were damaged in the initial floods

$150 million of aid was sought by Bangladesh and Saudi Arabia pledged $50 million and 5 planes worth of food and medicine

The Flood Forecasting and Warning Centre (FFWC) said that conditions in the South Central part of the country continued to deteriorate 12 days after the onset of flooding

Loss of agricultural land – a major problem in a country with high natural increase.

Erosion of chars (islands) by flooding rivers causes landlessness amongst Bangladesh’s poor; these people end up in major cities such as Chittagong and Dhaka.

Bangladesh is a developing country in Asia and it is

frequently affected by flooding. For example, in 2007 flooding made 9 million people homeless and approximately 1,000 people died from drowning and from

waterborne diseases.

http://coolgeography.co.uk/A-level/AQA/Year%2012/Rivers_Floods/Flooding/Bangladesh/Bangladesh.htm

HOW TO PREVENT FUTURE FLOODING IN BANGLADESH

Group 9 – Tashi Fowler, Sam Baker, Ruth Emery

Bangladesh is an LEDC

The land is densely populated – 150 million people

25 per cent of Bangladesh is less than 1 m above sea level

Suffered from terrible flood in 1998, leaving 30 million people homeless

50 million people living without protection

WHAT HAS BEEN DONE IN THE PAST?

Short-term responses to flooding:

• Food aid from the Government and other countries.

• Water purification tablets.

• People repaired embankments and helped to rescue people.

• Free seed given to farmers.

Long-term responses:

• Building embankments.

• Building raised flood shelters.

• Introducing flood warning systems.

• Emergency planning.

• Dams planned.

• Reducing deforestation.

Bangladesh is an LEDC and therefore does not have money to implement large schemes. It is always going to be threatened with flooding, so the focus is on reducing the impact.

The Flood Action Plan is funded by the World Bank. It funds projects to monitor flood levels and construct flood banks/artificial levees.

More sustainable ways of reducing the flooding include building coastal flood shelters on stilts and early-warning systems.

How to stop flooding in Bangladesh