Save our rivers from encroachers

Bangladesh, home to hundred and sixty million people, is among the countries most vulnerable to the effects of climate change. Around 40 per cent of the populations are children here. A low-lying delta characterized by a dense network of rivers, Bangladesh has been subjected to natural hazards, regardless of climate change. But as warmer temperatures cause the Himalayan glaciers to melt, a rising sea level and deadlier disasters threaten more lives. Bangladesh is born of water. The major part of Bangladesh lies in the GBM Delta, which is a confluence of three mighty rivers Ganga, Brahmaputra and Meghna.

The silt carried by these rivers and their numerous branches have formed most of the landmass of Bangladesh, and currently, the country is gaining 20 square kilometres annually through this process. The rivers are not only our past but also our future. Unfortunately, the rivers no longer have a place in our national imagination. That’s why 90 percent of rivers are being occupied and polluted; over the past 20 years, more than 43 rivers have dried up.

Riverine Bangladesh has become the land of dying rivers. Isn’t it a tragic irony. Extremes of heat are another type of impact of climate change with the potential of destroying livelihoods in Bangladesh. Major droughts affect the country almost every five years, with the north-western part being most vulnerable. As for children living in these communities, the risks are higher than adults. They are less able than adults at adapting to heat and other climate-related exposure. Due to lower functional immunity, they are at higher risk of contracting deadly vector-borne and diarrheal diseases as well as undernutrition. Disasters tear down schools, social institutions and livelihoods.

However, the chaos following the decline of the Mughal Empire and the advent of British colonial rule disarrayed those indigenous practices. The colonists had the image of peaceful and calm British rivers and, therefore, while dealing with the rough waters in Bengal, they tried to control them. Their arrogance and ignorance led them to undertake projects that proved fatal to the rivers in Bengal. The road-railway network in Bengal, for example, was built in the east-west direction instead of aligning it with the southward course of rivers, and, thus, the natural courses of the rivers were seriously disrupted.

Bangladesh has 700 rivers integral to the country’s culture, but many of them are dying. Driven by changing weather patterns and the country’s relentless push towards development, the crisis has become so critical that in July 2019 the supreme court declared all the country’s rivers to be living entities, with anyone damaging them subject to punishment. But for many of the communities whose lives depend on the waterways, the change of law has come too late. Both people and goods were traditionally transported along Bangladesh’s extensive river network. Floating markets still exist in parts of the country, and communities like the Choonati found specialised work on the water.

They are the biggest losers. Fishermen mainly. Hundreds of fishing communities have been destroyed. The death of Bangladesh’s rivers has been caused by encroachment, erosion, pollution and sand mining. All of these problems stem, he claimed, from decreased water flows that, while due in part to internal land barriers, are largely a result of restrictions on the flow by Bangladesh’s neighbours, especially India. The two countries share several major rivers, but Bangladeshi communities complain that they suffer from India’s dams depriving them of water during dry spells and inundating them in the rainy season.

Only a month since the end of Bangladesh’s rainy season, the river sits at less than half the level it did when it was a healthy tributary of the Surma, part of an extensive river system that stretches from India, breaking off and joining other rivers on the path southwards to the Bay of Bengal Dhaka’s water bodies have shrunk by two-thirds over the past 20 years, according to a recent study by the Bangladesh Institute of Planners, and hundreds of factories and tanneries pollute the city’s Buriganga river, according to activists Bangladesh’s progress has seen the country neglect its rivers in pursuit of resources.

We have 38 rivers which are severely polluted and encroached. We have more than 80 rivers that are [suffering] under the sand-mining situation. Sylhet has suffered because the sand and stone collected from its river beds, washed down from the hills in India, are used in roads and construction. The often illegal and excessive collection has diverted the flow of rivers, according to the government’s forestry department. As one of the activists who campaigned for Bangladesh to recognise the legal rights of rivers. Aside from the challenge of taking on businesses that profit from mining the rivers or building around them, but there needs to be a cultural change in Bangladesh, where the traditional link to rivers has been forgotten. People became detached culturally from the rivers. We have to revive the utility of the rivers.

Killing rivers used to be a metaphorical expression in Bangladesh until rivers were granted the legal status of living entities in early 2019. That designation made it more literal, symbolising the importance of rivers in our life. About four years later, however, it remains the only outcome of a verdict hailed as historic as everything else remains unchanged, with rivers being polluted, filled, and encroached across the country as before.

The overall situation has reached a point where only drastic action can protect what remains of our rivers or their health. The authorities must shed their present laissez-faire approach to rivers. They must address their plight with the urgency that it deserves. Simply dredging does not bear a long-term or sustainable solution. We must remember that a river does not carry only water; it also carries sediments. And there is an intricate relationship among discharge, sediment load and channel geometry as well as channel pattern.

If a river carries a huge amount of sediment, dredging will not provide a durable solution, as incoming sediment in the following monsoons will fill up the dredged channel. 

Apparently, the government plans to take up some major projects for dredging big rivers like the Jamuna. Over the last few years, huge funds have been spent on dredging the Jamuna near Sirajganj. We should first evaluate the success of such projects before embarking on any new major works. However, if we go for properly planned and designed ‘river management’ projects that include bank revetment, ‘river training infrastructures’ and plans to dredge in appropriate reaches, then we may find the right solutions.

Again, this exercise should be carried out in a phased manner so as to enable the ‘observe and learn’ approach. Dredging of small rivers, however, poses much less of a challenge.

To deal with this, the locals proposed a solution in the form of Tidal River Management (TRM), based on their traditional knowledge and wisdom. Still, the government and engineers of the Water Development Board were against it. However, the local people implemented TRM near Chuknagar, Khulna and found positive results, which forced the government to accept it as a technical solution to the waterlogging problem. But again, local influential people involved in the shrimp business and members of parliament, in collusion with the government, frustrated the local people, and the problem is continuing to date.

There are many such examples in Bangladesh where the state not only failed to protect the rivers but abetted the river polluters and grabbers. It is clear the responsibility of protecting and maintaining rivers must be in the hands of the community, with the state only facilitating that process. We have the appropriate constitutional provisions and necessary laws for taking action against encroachers and polluters. I believe that it is possible to do so if the administration is fully committed to save our rivers.

The governments of India and China are cleaning up their rivers; they are using modern technology such as Remote Sensing and Satellite Monitoring to monitor the conditions of the rivers. Developed countries are using proper monitoring mechanisms of maintaining the acceptable level of river water quality. I believe that we have the capacity to restore our rivers. 

The writer is a UK based researcher. He can be contacted at [email protected]