Seven years ago, a monsoon flood left nothing standing in their village, located in Bhola on the country’s south-west coast
Every day, some 2,000 people settle in the Bangladeshi capital.
It’s nothing new – for generations the city has been a magnet for men and women escaping rural poverty.
the Earth’s changing climate, which has already made life extremely difficult in stretches of this pancake-flat country threaded with rivers
the country is expected to be at least 2C hotter. By 2080, the seas could be 2ft higher.
Majority of migrants hail from coastal areas that are already experiencing rising sea levels, increased salinity, destructive floods and cyclones
At least 400,000 people move to Dhaka every year
70% of Dhaka’s slum-dwellers moved there fleeing some sort of environmental shock.
All over the world, people are or will be on the move – in Africa, largely due to drought; in Asia, floods. By 2060, there could be between 25 million and 1 billion environmental migrants. And cities will be their primary destination.
In Dhaka, meanwhile, a teeming megacity of more than 15 million people packed into a 325 sq km radius,
a city where everything is clogged – from roads and pavements to rivers and drains.
The slums, already home to hundreds of thousands, are expanding rapidly.
Within two decades, the city’s population could double to 30 million.
“They’re not getting enough safe water to drink; they’re not getting sanitation facilities.”
Dhaka is prone to flooding.
It is also running dry. About 90% of the city’s water supplies come from ground reserves, which are depleted by three metres a year.
In summer months there are chronic shortages of water and protests in the summer months.
Long-term groundwater depletion causes the earth to sink, which exacerbates flooding, a major problem in Dhaka.
It can also lead to the intrusion of salty water into the supply.
Armies of field workers have responded to climate challenges with innovation. Farmers whose salt-washed land is unfit to grow regular rice have turned to salt-tolerant strains, or raised shrimp instead.
There has been a concerted effort to persuade villagers not to leave their homes.
Most migrants now eke out a living as street sweepers, rickshaw drivers and domestic workers in slums where they face the constant threat of eviction.
They miss the countryside.
“Life in the village was good, whose home in Barisal was swallowed by the river. “We had land to cultivate and our family lived happy all year round. In Dhaka, we struggle for survival.” Although we are poor, we don’t need to be afraid of losing our house in the river any more.”
With some scientists estimating that shifting weather patterns could cost the country almost a quarter of its existing landmass, climate migration is fast becoming alarmingly commonplace
Fishers and farmers have lived for generations on the south-west coast of Bangladesh, near Cox’s Bazar, but in recent years had struggled to adapt to increasingly strong storms and coastal erosion.
Other families had moved to the city as saltwater encroached on their rice fields, but they had clung on.
Tens of thousands of Bangladeshi families face becoming refugees in their own land.
“We lost everything to river erosion. We escaped with just our lives,” says Renu Bibi, an 80-year-old woman now living in a slum in the Mirpur district of Dhaka. “Today, boats pass over the place where our land was. Sometimes three or four entire villages will be destroyed.”
“It has been estimated by the UN IPCC’s reports that a one-metre sea level rise in the south of the country will entail a 17-20% loss of land (20 % of current land).
Bangladesh’s relentless monsoon season, Dhaka is submerged several times a month.
The overburdened drains clog and the low-lying city fills with water like a bathtub.
Dhaka is the world’s most crowded city. With more than 44,500 people sharing each km sq and more migrating in from rural areas every day.
The capital is literally bursting at the seams – and the sewers.
Overpopulation is usually defined as the state of having more people in one place that can live there comfortably, or more than the resources available can cater for. By that measure, Dhaka is a textbook example.
The poor are crammed into sprawling shantytowns, where communicable diseases fester and fires sporadically raze homes.
Slum-dwellers make up around 40% of the population.
The middle and upper classes spend much of their time stuck in interminable traffic jams.
Bangladesh has undergone rapid, unplanned urbanisation.
The economic opportunities conferred by globalisation, as well as climate-induced disasters in rural and coastal areas, have driven millions to seek better fortune in the capital, putting a strain on resources.
Bangladesh’s reluctance to decentralise and invest in cities beyond Dhaka has compounded the problem,
urbanisation has outpaced development, resulting in the creation of teeming but dysfunctional megacities such as Dhaka.
Almost all of these problems can be solved by competent governments with enough money,”
“The lack of coordination between government agencies that provide services is one of the major obstacles,”
Those moving to water-stressed or low-lying coastal cities in developing countries may paradoxically find themselves exposed to greater climate-change related risks,”
INTRODUCTION:
DHAKA
URBANISATION
FORCED MIGRATION
REASONS for FORCED MIGRATION
CONCLUSION
Possible Solutions
CONSEQUENCES for MEGACITY GROWTH
