River Bank Erosion, Induced Population Migration and Adaptation Strategies in the Sirajganj Sadar Upazila, Bangladesh

Abstract

Riverbank erosion, a regular natural phenomenon in the lower confluence deltaic country like Bangladesh. Among the natural disaster effecting Bangladesh each year, river bank erosion is the most vulnerable in term of effected people and loss of assets. As a riverine country there are huge number of rivers and their tributaries and distributaries criss-crossed over the country, but the mighty three rivers like the Padma, Jamuna and Meghna are mostly known for the erosional characteristics. River bank erosion possesses as a significant, endemic and recurrent natural disaster in Bangladesh by these rivers. This research is designed to explore the erosional pattern of the river Jamuna and its impact on population migration and the adaptation strategy of the migrants. For the study primary data were collected from the study area through questionnaire survey, FGD and mapping analysis while secondary data were collected from published and unpublished reports of different offices such as land office, union parisad office, census report, BBS, WDB etc. However, to analyze the trend of erosion mapping analysis was conducted through ArcGIS 10.3 and for statistical analysis SPSS software was used. The research findings indicate that the Jamuna is a highly dynamic river in term of erosion. Due to its severity and dynamic erosional pattern possess mass number of people to be displaced by losing settlements and agricultural land. River bank erosion of Jamuna River invites many obligatory problems at different stages of displacements like loss of residence, household assets, agricultural land etc. Though it pushes the victims to readjust all their activities associated to livelihood pattern as an adaptation strategy with a newer socio-environmental situation, but very often becomes unable to recover the damage even spending considerable time. From this point of view, river bank erosion needs to be considered as a unique disaster and give attention to take comprehensive riverbank erosion management policy, so that problem can be minimized to a tiny scale.