Sustainability impacts of tidal river management: Towards a conceptual framework

Abstract

The Southwest Coastal people of Bangladesh have introduced Tidal River Management (TRM) as an environmentally acceptable water resource management practice based on their indigenous knowledge of water logging of low lying coastal land. TRM helps to address problems resulting from different anthropogenic and structural development activities, and it has been successful in helping coastal communities to adapt to climate change and rising sea level vulnerability by forming new land in Tidal Basins. Hence, it is essential to measure sustainability impacts of TRM from the environmental, socio-economic and institutional perspectives. Therefore, firstly, the study identifies sustainability indicators of TRM considering ecosystem services and secondly, develops an inclusive conceptual framework to understand the important impacts of each indicator at various spatial and temporal scales. The conceptual framework is followed by the construction of a Sustainability Index of Tidal River Management (SITRM). It has advantages over the Ramsar Convention framework (2007) and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) framework (2012) to measure water sustainability as it includes a sustainable model to project future vulnerability of the community, river and Tidal Basin, emphasizing on climate change issues. It also involves trade-offs analysis, livelihood analysis and SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats) analysis for a complete impact assessment to enable decision-makers to focus on those services most likely to be of risks and weaknesses or opportunities and strengths for the sustainability of TRM. Moreover, the framework is a useful guide for policymakers in identifying the sustainability impacts of TRM so that they can choose best coping strategies for coastal people to effectively deal with adverse effects of water-logging and undesired climatic events as well as environmental and socio-economic changes in coastal areas.

Multi-stakeholder participation for sustainable delta management: a challenge of the socio-technical transformation in the management practices in Bangladesh

“…Technically, TRM would allow the natural movement of sediment-borne tidal water into an embanked tidal basin or beel (wetland/depressed landforms in river floodplain) at high tide and allow the deposition of sediment inside the beel. At ebb tide, the outgoing silt-free water would scour the riverbed at high velocity and increase its drainage capacity (Shampa and Pramanik MIM 2012;Amir et al 2013;Paul et al 2013, Masud et al 2018. During TRM the concerned beel was exposed to free tidal movement for a certain number of years.…”

“…institutions and technology), and agricultural development process (e.g. water, land, and society) (Mutahara et al 2017;Masud et al 2018;Seijger et al 2019;Gain et al 2019b). Our present research focuses on TRM as one of the promising transitions in water management system in a particular part of Bangladesh delta.…”

Exploring human-nature interaction on the coastal floodplain in the Ganges-Brahmaputra delta through the lens of Ostrom’s social-ecological systems framework

“…For indicator selection and data collection, we adopted a mixed method approach primarily involving a qualitative case study design based on four workshops, stakeholder interviews, and site visits along with quantitative data from secondary sources and published articles (Auerbach et al 2015, Hossain et al 2015, Mutahara et al 2018, van Staveren et al 2017, Gain et al, 2017a, Masud et al 2018. Field surveys (workshops, interviews and site visits) were conducted during May-November, 2018.…”

The Impact of Tidal River Management on Livestock in the Ganges-Brahmaputra Basin

“…Tidal River Management (TRM) is a community-based water resource management technique, which is now frequently being practiced in the southwestern coastal region of Bangladesh [17][18][19][20]. Their judgment is that if tidal flows can be allowed to enter inside the beel, the navigability of the rivers will be restored, and sediment will accumulate inside the polders.…”

“…Hence, the tidal river-floodplain system and its ecological environment and human wellbeing thereafter are closely interlinked, which has again been aggravated by structural intervention processes [13,20,22]. In addition, coastal people choice TRM option (has already been implemented) at Beel Kaderia (1997-2001), East Beel Khukshia (2007 and Beel Kaderia (2002Kaderia ( -2005 under Hari-Teka tidal river basin to remove water-logging from floodplain, raise beel by managing sediment and develop drainage capacity of the tidal river as to improve their livelihoods and household's income with offering more ecosystem services.…”