A QUARTER OF BANGLADESH HAS BEEN INUNDATED WITH FLOODWATERS: NASA’
CONTEXT Nearly a quarter of Bangladesh has been inundated with fl oodwaters, according to latest satellite images of the country captured by NASA recently
€ BACKGROUND
Bangladesh has been a vulnerable state for much
of its short existence.
People in this fl ood-prone country have coped
with rising water levels with a combination of
innovation, fl exibility and resilience – but the
extremes the environment is now throwing at
them might be beyond anyone’s endurance.
As climate change accelerates, the pressures on
rural Bangladeshis mount.
Historically, people in Bangladesh had worked
around seasonal fl ooding; farming for part of
the year and retreating when water levels rose,
or seeking work in the cities as land became
unusable.
By the end of the century, however, sea levels are
expected to rise along the Bangladesh coastline by
up to 1.5m.
And that will come with more extreme seasonal
fl uctuations in sea levels. Disastrous storms and
unusually high tides currently occur once each
decade, but could become as regular as three to
15 times each year by 2100.
