Preventing flooding or regulating flood levels?: Case studies on perception of flood alleviation in Bangladesh |
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| Authors: | Harun Rasid |
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| Institution: | (1) Department of Geography, Lakehead University, Thunder Bay, P7B 5E1 Ontario, Canada |
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| Abstract: | Based on a systematic sample survey among the residents of two contrasting floodplain environments - the Tista floodplain (a shallow flood area) and the Ganges-Brahmaputra floodplain (a deep flood area) - this study tests a central hypothesis that the floodplain residents of Bangladesh preferred regulation of flood levels as the main flood alleviation measure. The study found that, despite significant differences in property setting, flood hazard experience and the nature of indigenous adjustments to floods between the two sample areas, an overwhelming 95% of the respondents from each area preferred regulation of flood levels within a range of 0.3 to 2.0 m. The study attempts to provide an explanation for the popularity of regulated flood levels in the context of indigenous adjustments of floodplain crops and infrastructures tonormal flood levels in Bangladesh, which coincided with the respondents' preferred range of flood levels. The study points out that the objective of the UNDP/World Bank-sponsored embankment compartmentalization projects also coincides with this goal of regulating flood levels. However, to test the physical limitations of regulating water levels between neighbouring compartments and to assess the environmental impacts of the proposed projects, the study stresses the need for initiating environmental baseline surveys on the pilot compartmentalization project, which is located on the left bank of the Brahmaputra. |
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| Keywords: | Normal and abnormal floods indigenous adjustments structural measures regulated flood levels embankment compartmentalization |
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