Its Because of the countryâs natural susceptibility to extreme weather, the people of Bangladesh have always used migration as a coping strategy. The labour is hard, and the returns are small, but many workers might be faced with few alternatives.Workers load recyclable plastic into a mill for processing (Credit: Ignacio Marin/ Institute)With few opportunities facing unskilled labourers, finding work when reaching a new city can be hard. How sustainable will aquaculture be? 0385 3159)Approximately 10,000 hectares of land is lost in Bangladesh every year to riverbank erosionThe Gathering Storm: Climate Change, Security and Conflict Crop varieties cannot cope with the saltwater, and career alternatives are limited.What, then, can be done for the most vulnerable people; the rural rice farmers of Bangladesh?A family navigate the heavily flooded land around their slum, Korail, in Dhaka, the capital city of Bangladesh (Credit: Ignacio Marin/ Institute)Historically, people in Bangladesh had worked around seasonal flooding; farming for part of the year and retreating when water levels rose, or seeking work in the cities as land became unusable.As a result, rural Bangladeshis face a stark choice; change their way or life or seek employment and a home elsewhere.“The climate is becoming more volatile so we are seeing higher frequency of migration,” says Joyce Chen, an economist at The Ohio State University. About 20 million people in the coastal areas of Bangladesh are already affected by salinity in drinking water.
“Where in the past we see migration due to annual flooding, or river bank erosion, now we see saltwater intrusion more commonly which affects the environment long term. People will go where the water tastes sweetest. Children and families can earn money by picking out recyclables. Where previously people might have been able to move away for the worst of seasonal flooding, the regularity of waterlogging is making it impossible to farm. 1088128). “I have heard stories of a lot more people building their houses on stilts, or having retention ponds around farms,” says Chen. It has been estimated that by 2050, one in every seven people in Bangladesh will be displaced by climate change. “We have heard a little about switching to types of crops that are more saline-tolerant but I don't think there are that many varieties that exist,” says Chen.Most migrants who head to Dhaka end up in slums similar to this one (Credit: Ignacio Marin/ Institute)Migrants moving within Bangladesh are attracted to the larger cities which for the most part are on the coast. Up to 18 million people may have to move because of sea level rise alone. People in Bangladesh have also taken to building polders, as they are known, to protect their farm land. Low-lying coastal regions, such as Bangladesh, are vulnerable to sea level rise and the increased occurrence of intense, extreme weather conditions such as the cyclones of 2007–2009, as well as the melting of polar ice.
Energy must be taken from the environment for water or ice to move to a less ordered state. One problem facing those responsible for protecting migrant workers in Bangladesh is that those who are most vulnerable are the least able to relocate, Chen warns.“The most vulnerable people might be stuck in place, says Chen. By 2050, sea-level rise will push average annual coastal floods higher than land now home to 300 million people, according to a study published in Nature Communications. In the cyclone disaster of 1991, for example,As for women in many other countries, Bangladeshi women have less access to land, resources and decision-making than men, and their wages are lower, making it A 2012 study of 1,500 Bangladeshi families migrating to cities, mainly Dhaka, showed that almost of all of them cited the changing environment as the biggest reason for their decision.Saleem Huq, Senior Fellow on Climate change, International Institute for Environment and DevelopmentThe Indian government has been building a border fence around its territory and announced in 2017 that it was 90% completed.
“People talk constantly about how hard it is to get fresh water in Bangladesh – they call it sweet water,” says Chen. “There is some evidence that migration due to saline water inundation affects educational outcomes, food insecurity affects health, too,” says Chen.For many, food insecurities result in a trade-off between personal health and the welfare of their livestock – some of the most valuable assets rural families own. But, the ways they are being resilient now need to be sustainable into the future.