Tides are Changing: a People’s Plan for Upscaling Ecosystem-based Adaptation in the Tidal Rivers of Southwest Bangladesh
Project Information
Being among the world’s most vulnerable to climate change and sea level rise, people in southwest coastal Bangladesh are advocating for a safe and healthy living environment. “Tidal River Management” offers a promising strategy to that end by restoring the river ecosystem. Yet, its sustainable and widespread implementation is hampered by a lack of people’s representation and local ownership in the planning processes and governance structures. Both ENDS, Uttaran and CEGIS are therefore working together with inhabitants and governments in the Betna-Marichhap river basin to elaborate a Community-Based Tidal River Management (CBTRM).
The project consists of three pillars:
- A “People’s Plan”; a participatory planning process with communities and institutional stakeholders to address the technical design, (community) resource management and livelihood planning under CBTRM in the Betna-Marichhap river basin.
- An inclusive governance model, which focuses on the necessary institutional reforms for safeguarding community ownership under CBTRM.
- Catalysing investment for CBTRM: engagement with financing agencies to create awareness and establish a support base for CBTRM.
With the project result – a comprehensive ‘roadmap’ to CBTRM – we aim to create a model example for this Ecosystem-based Approach to facilitate future upscaling of Community-Based Tidal River Management in southwest Bangladesh.
Project Status
Over the last half year, the team engaged with more than 1,500 people living in the two river basins. These centred around awareness-raising activities and workshops about the impacts of waterlogging and its root causes, the potential for Ecosystem-based Adaptation, and people’s concerns and needs related to Community-based Tidal River Management (CBTRM). During these meetings, members from Paani (Water) Committees and Civil Society Organisations highlighted the need for a central platform where community representatives, civil society and other stakeholders could exchange knowledge, jointly strategize and collectively advocate for the restoration of the tidal river ecosystem. The project has therefore facilitated the formation of the “Betna-Maricchap Nodi Rokkha Committee” (Betna-Maricchap River Protection Committee).
So far around 75 government officials have been engaged, exchanging knowledge and raising awareness about the current waterlog crisis in the Betna-Marichhap river basin, its root causes, and the potential of CBTRM as a cost-effective alternative to the ongoing excavations – in addition to CBTRM’s potential to sustain these and other infrastructure investments over the long run. These meetings have been instrumental in gaining support from both local and national government officials for this project, which is of critical importance in ensuring local ownership of the outcome of this project and the eventual implementation of CBTRM.
Field visits and dialogues with local people, government officials, and technical experts have reconfirmed that excavations are considerably more expensive, less effective, and less sustainable than CBTRM when it comes to tackling waterlogging, adapting to rapid sea level rise and other adverse impacts of climate change.
Potential beels (floodplains) that are mentioned by the Bangladesh Delta Plan (BDP2100) as potential sites for the implementation of TRM in the Betna-Marichap river basin have been mapped. In addition to these 12 beels, local people and technical experts have identified other floodplains that might be suitable for the implementation of TRM, expanding the options and feasibility for the implementation of TRM. In the coming months, the team will assess the actual feasibility and options for TRM in this river basin, which will serve as valuable input for the communities to further develop the People’s Plan.
