Evolution of water management in coastal Bangladesh: from temporary earthen embankments to depoliticized community-managed polders

Abstract

This article examines the historical evolution of participatory water management in coastal Bangladesh. Three major shifts are identified: first, from indigenous local systems managed by landlords to centralized government agencies in the 1960s; second, from top-down engineering solutions to small-scale projects and people’s participation in the 1970s and 1980s; and third, towards depoliticized community-based water management since the 1990s. While donor requirements for community participation in water projects have resulted in the creation of ‘depoliticized’ water management organizations, there are now increasing demands for involvement of politically elected local government institutions in water management by local communities

From Flood Control to Water Management: A Journey of Bangladesh towards Integrated Water Resources Management

“…The recent notion of participation has been even deeper and includes gender and equity dimensions of participation. In contrast to the above findings, some recent studies (e.g., [40,41]) found that true participation is not happening at field level.…”

Tidal river management in the south west Ganges-Brahmaputra delta in Bangladesh: Moving towards a transdisciplinary approach?

“…Such dynamic physical and anthropogenic process (de Die, 2013;van Staveren et al, 2016) are also linked with the historic evolution of water management practices from temporary earthen embankments to depoliticized community-based water management (Dewan et al, 2015).…”

“…Upstream water withdrawal and the G-K irrigation project have consequently increased water salinity (Gain et al, 2007;) and induced high rates of sediment deposition in the south west coastal region. In parallel, coastal polders (earthen embankments) have been constructed since the 1960s in order to provide protection from floods and to increase agricultural production However, these polders have prevented silt from the rivers from being deposited on flood plains, resulting in high rates of sedimentation on the river bed, congesting both rivers and canals and causing many to dry out over a period of decades (Dewan et al, 2014;Dewan et al, 2015).…”

Co-Benefits of Household Waste Recycling for Local Community’s Sustainable Waste Management in Thailand

“…Efficiency comparisons between CBM and traditional models often found that CBM can resolve issues effectively with less burden on other taxpayers [34][35][36]. Employing CBM as a tool for resource management has been found in the fields of water resource management [37,38], forest management [39,40], community services [41,42], etc.…”