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Climate Change Hits Bangladesh River Country

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By James Lin/John Van Trieste

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Villagers on the "char" islands along the Brahmaputra River are being displaced, as climate change and urbanization speed up the erosion of the places they call home.

Life on the Shifting Islands of the Brahmaputra River 

 

REPORTER:   

On an island in the Brahmaputra River in Bangladesh, people are busy moving a house onto a barge, to take it to safer ground. The river creates islands like this one, called chars, from the sediment it carries all the time. But in time, it also washes them away. People in this part of the world know when it’s time to move on. 

 

REPORTER:   

For hundreds of families in northern Bangladesh, it’s a way of life—and a hard one. For each move, displaced people must make new arrangements with the landowners of newly formed chars. 

 

REPORTER:   

50-year-old Nurun Nabi can remember moving 31 times in his lifetime. Now, it’s time to pack up and ship off again. 

 

Nurun Nabi:   

Relocating homesteads has become our additional profession. We inherited it as locals of the [river island] region. We often relocate two or three times a year. Sometimes we get lucky and can live in one place up to a year. This fate has been following us since long before the British [colonial] period. 

 

REPORTER:   

But these moves are becoming more frequent—as climate change makes the river less predictable. 

 

REPORTER:   

Some islanders have adapted with some success. On this char, sand-filled sacks called geobags have helped firm up the delicate shoreline. It’s given residents enough stability to set up a volunteer-run primary school, but the river is unforgiving—and spots where there aren’t yet geobags in place are crumbling, threatening the school and more. 

 

Char Resident:   

I sincerely hope we will get more geobags to stop the erosion around the char. Then we can dream of staying here permanently, or at least for a few more years. Then we can concentrate on teaching our children. If this char washes away, the school will be gone. Their education will be ruined, again. 

 

REPORTER:   

In the capital, Dhaka, it’s clear to climate analyst Malik Fida A Khan what’s happening in the river country: a combination of a shifting climate and the growth of cities. 

 

Malik Fida A Khan (CLIMATE ANALYST):   

So, if there is a change in the rainfall, or if there is any change in the pattern of the flow, definitely that will impact the riverbank erosion and accretion. The second point of climate change is urbanization. If there is urbanization in the upstream part of the Jamuna river, so what happened, then the quantum of the sediment, the flow will also increase. 

 

REPORTER:   

Some island residents hope the government will create a special ministry to handle their difficulties—but at least one government official says there’s no plan to do that. 

 

REPORTER:   

Leaving residents of the shifting islands to their own devices as their situation becomes more urgent.