and participants of the Economics of Adaptation to Climate Change country consultations for their useful comments and suggestions. We are also grateful to Roufa Khanam for her valuable help with the GIS and Norma Adams for editorial help. The views expressed here are the authors', and do not necessarily reflect those of the World Bank, its Executive Directors, or the countries they represent.
Bangladesh is one of the most flood prone countries in the world. Two thirds of the country is less than 5 m above sea level. Past monsoon flood records indicate that about 21% of the country is subject to annual flooding and an additional 42% is at risk of floods with varied intensity. Although annual regular flooding has traditionally been beneficial, providing nutrient-laden sediments and recharging groundwater aquifers, the country often experiences severe flooding during a monsoon that causes significant damage to crops and properties with adverse impacts on rural livelihoods and production. The 1998 flood inundated two thirds of the land area, resulting in damages and losses of over US$2 billion, or 4.8% of GDP. Climate models suggest increased precipitation, higher transboundary water flows, and sea-level rise will all increase the destructive power of monsoon floods. Using climate change scenarios out to 2050, hydrological and hydrodynamic models, this article estimates an incremental cost to climate-proof roads and railways, river embankments protecting productive agricultural lands, and drainage systems and erosion control measures for major towns of US$2,671 million initially and US$54 million in annual recurrent costs.
Bangladesh is affected strongly by climate change. Increasing surface air temperature is most prominent in Bangladesh, where an increasing trend and temporal variation in the mean seasonal temperature is observed within the range of 0.4-0.65 °C during the past 40-year period. Although the winter season experiences the minimum rainfall, historical trend is showing a positive inclination in 27 out of 32 rainfall observatories of the meteorological department. The riverine fl ood (or monsoon fl ood) is affected by the following climate change related phenomenon, especially due to change in the frequency and intensity in extreme rainfall event may subsequently increase the intensity of fl ood. Riverbank erosion is one of the major natural disasters of Bangladesh, which is also related to the monsoon fl ooding. Floods, especially the high intensity fl oods, often devastate physical infrastructure such as road networks, educational centres, market places, administrative buildings etc. Changes in climate may affect irrigation requirements for all the three cropping seasons: Rabi, Kharif-I, and Kharif-II. At present, western parts of Bangladesh are periodically being affected by droughts in winter months. Since the temperature will rise, and there exists a strong possibility that the winter precipitation will decrease further, it is likely that the moisture content of topsoil would decrease substantially leading to severe moisture stress.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.