Jamuna Multipurpose Bridge Research Articles

Analysis of Nests of Ten Species of Passerine Birds from the Collection of the Bangabandhu Jamuna Multipurpose Bridge Regional Museum in Tangail, Bangladesh

Analysis of nests of ten species of passerine birds from the collection of the Bangabandhu Jamuna Multipurpose Bridge Regional Museum, Tangail, Bangladesh was conducted during February to April 2010. In total 77 nests of the species studied were measured from outer surface of the sealed glass-boxes and the nest materials were identified. The nesting plants and nesting heights were analyzed from the records of the museum. The Chittagong Univ. J. B. Sci.,Vol. 7(1 &2):45-57 , 2012.

Impact of the Bangabandhu Jamuna Multipurpose Bridge on Marketing of Agricultural Products of North West Region of Bangladesh

Impact of the Bangabandhu Jamuna Multipurpose Bridge on Marketing of Agricultural Products of North West Region of Bangladesh

Do people displaced by development need more than financial compensation? Evidence from Bangladesh

AbstractMotivationMillions of people worldwide have been forcibly displaced by development projects. Bangladesh is no exception: development projects have already displaced thousands. Although those displaced are usually compensated financially, the amounts are often too small to restore their livelihoods. This has led to complementary support, such as benefit‐sharing, rebuilding and rehabilitation of livelihoods, and resettlement with development.PurposeThe study assessed the sufficiency of paid compensation in the Jamuna Multipurpose Bridge (JMB) resettlement project in order to demonstrate the need for alternative supports to complement the compensation processes to reconstruct displaced people's livelihoods.Approach and methodsHouseholds affected by the JMB project were surveyed to answer a questionnaire. Professionals and officials of the implementing agencies and key informants were interviewed. The results were compared with other better cases reported in the literature.FindingsThe monetary compensation offered to those displaced by the JMB was not enough to resettle, restore, or reconstruct displaced people's livelihoods. As a result, most of the displaced people’s livelihoods have remained unreconstructed; many faced impoverishment. The respondents' felt that the compensation paid did not cover their loss. The absence of alternative solutions for coping with the limitations of compensation left persons affected by the project much worse off than before.Policy and implicationsLivelihoods of displaced people can be protected by taking measures to avoid impoverishment. In addition to ensuring that compensation is commensurate with losses, introducing benefit‐sharing — through transfers of shares of revenues, or paying a rent for land taken over — can provide additional and consistent income. Community‐supportive systems and policies in resettlement plans should be adopted. Bangladesh should legislate to legally back benefit‐sharing resettlement policies, with penalties for non‐compliance. Funding agencies such as the World Bank, the ADB, and international and national NGOs should also act to ensure that development projects do not continue to impoverish displaced people.

Bank Protection Structures along the Brahmaputra-Jamuna River, a Study of Flow Slides

The planform of the Brahmaputra-Jamuna River followed its natural path in Bangladesh until the construction of bank protection works started to save Sirajganj from bank erosion since the 1930s. Several so-called hardpoints such as groynes and revetments were constructed in the period 1980–2015 and the Jamuna Multipurpose Bridge was opened in 1998. The Brahmaputra Right Embankment and other projects had saved the western flood plain from inundation during monsoon floods. These river training works experienced severe damage by geotechnical failures, mostly flow slides. A flow slide is an underwater slope failure because of liquefaction or a breaching process in the subsoil or a combination of both. The design of most of these training works did not consider the risk of damage by flow slides. All descriptions of the observed damages show that scour phenomena in the channel close to a river training work are a cause of flow slides, besides pore water outflow. The research question was: how can the design of river training works be improved to reduce the risk of damage by flow slides? The main part of the investigation was focussed on reducing local scour holes near river training works. The most promising results are river training works with gentle bank slopes, permeable groynes, bed protections in dredged trenches with gentle side slopes, and methods to increase locally the bearing capacity of the subsoil. It is recommended to increase the knowledge of the failure mechanisms in the Brahmaputra-Jamuna River by improved monitoring in the field, the setup of a database with descriptions of all observed flow slides and the circumstances in which they occur. In addition to these recommendations, a field test facility is proposed to verify the knowledge of the failure mechanisms in that river. These activities will optimise the design of new river training structures with a very low risk of damages by flow slides and geotechnical instabilities and they will contribute to an improvement of the current design guidelines for river training structures.

Impacts of Improved Infrastructure on Labor Allocation and Livelihoods: The Case of the Jamuna Multipurpose Bridge, Bangladesh

The present study econometrically examines the impacts of an improved road transportation system on labor allocation, input use, and livelihood diversification in an economically lagging part of Bangladesh. Before 1998, the northwest part of Bangladesh, home to 22% of nearly 160 million people, was de-linked from the economically advanced eastern part of Bangladesh. On June 23, 1998, the Jamuna Multipurpose Bridge (JMB) on the river Jamuna was opened for use. The bridge has established direct road and rail transportation systems between the northwestern part and the eastern part of Bangladesh. Using these phenomena, and linking the Household Income and Expenditure Survey (HIES) data, HIES2000 and HIES2010, this study elucidates the impacts of improved infrastructure on labor allocation and the input application behavior of the sampled households. Applying the difference-in-difference estimation approach, this study demonstrates that the JMB that has linked the northwest and eastern regions has encouraged labor out-migration, resulting in the most vulnerable day-laborers in both farm and non-farm sectors moving to other jobs with relatively high marginal returns. The improved transportation infrastructure had also increased the daily wage rates, which were lower than the comparison group, and the cropping intensity in the Rajshahi and Rangpur divisions. The study, therefore, concludes that investment in infrastructure can be instrumental in unleashing economic growth and alleviating poverty in the economically struggling parts of developing countries.

Infrastructure and well-being: employment effects of Jamuna bridge in Bangladesh

ABSTRACTWe evaluate the impact of the Jamuna multipurpose bridge, the largest physical infrastructure in Bangladesh, on employment opportunities. We particularly focus on labour market integration effects using survey data that provide information on current and retrospective assessments of household situation in two adjacent districts connected by the bridge. Using a quasiexperimental framework of the canonical difference-in-difference regression methodology, we analyse the impact of this infrastructure on employment and job transition patterns. We find that, along with decreasing household unemployment, the bridge construction facilitated farm-to nonfarm shift of employments. Also, the treatment effects are heterogeneous across age groups.

Impacts of Bangabandhu Jamuna Multi-purpose Bridge on the dynamics of bar morphology at the Jamuna River in Bangladesh

This research paper evaluates the impacts of Bangabandhu Jamuna Multi-purpose Bridge on the dynamics of bar morphology of Jamuna River. A reach of 35 km upstream to 35 km downstream in a width of 25 km (total 1750 km2) considered to assess the impacts of the bridge. Time-series satellite images were used to examine the bar development of the study, both pre-bridge construction period (1973, 1984 and 1994) and post-bridge construction period (2004 and 2012). The ERDAS IMAGINE 9.2, ArcGIS 9.3 and Google Earth softwares were used for image processing and examine the morphological changes and dynamics of the bars. In post bridge construction periods; about 255.46852 km2 area of bars increased by the impact of the bridge of 1750 km2 (14.63% increase of bar area). Island bar dominated area increased 103.73619 km2; almost 5.93% increase referring the total study area. On the other hand, the construction of Bangabandhu Jamuna Bridge causes about 151.16345 km2 increase of the attached bars; also 8.69% increase referring the total study area. By the analysis it was found that 60.352797 km2 area of sand carpeting decreases; almost 3.45% reduction with the total study area after the construction of the bridge.

Application of remote sensing and GIS for evaluation of the recent morphological characteristics of the lower Brahmaputra-Jamuna River, Bangladesh

This paper deals with the morphological changes of the lower Brahmaputra-Jamuna River (BJR) in Bangladesh. Within few decades, the planform of the river has been changed abruptly by the combined effect of natural process and human interventions. Morphological features observing in this study were river planform, channel width, bankline migration and channel bed elevation. Eighteen sets of remote sensing data series from 1973 to 2011were analyzed using ERDAS/Imagine and GIS to document the variation of geomorphic elements of the lower BJR. GIS analysis of remote sensing data showed that the changes of channel planform were quite significant over the past 40 years, occurring two major phases of channel development. The changing patterns in the first phase (i.e., between 1973 and 1992) were quite irregular. However, the second phase ranging between 1992 and 2011 was unidirectional (mostly eastward). In general, the studied river reach was widened and the average rate of migration was 225 m y–1 that was three–folds the values of the first phase. The height and slope of sand bars were gradually increasing, showing the highest value around the Jamuna Multipurpose Bridge (JMB) section. The planform characteristics of BJR at the downstream of JMB showed that the river reach was gradually widening and shifting eastwards. However, the reach at the upstream of the JMB showed westward migration. The recent trends of channel changes suggest that the river planform has lost it’s naturally condition and it may, therefore, be predicted that increasing nature of channel width likely to continue in the immediate future.

Development-driven forced displacement and compensation-based resettlement: experiences from the Jamuna multi-purpose bridge project

In 1998 the Jamuna Multi-Purpose Bridge (JMB), the largest infrastructure development project in Bangladesh was completed. Huge numbers of households were affected by the project and many were displaced. Only a handful of displaced people were resettled by the project. The JMB was the first development project in Bangladesh that included resettlement activities as an integral part of the project and introduced a resettlement action plan. In principle, the Revised Resettlement Action Plan endorsed the primary principle of Operational Directives 4:30 of the World Bank. The resettlement project's core objective was to improve the living standards of project-affected persons above their previous level, or at least reinstate their pre-project standard. To meet the goals, various grants and supports were given as compensation. The project has earned international admiration as an example for other projects to follow. This study investigates the extent to which Jamuna Multi-Purpose Bridge's compensation-based resettlement succeeded in reconstructing displaced households, and identifies discrepancies between policy and practice. It concludes with major findings and comparative analysis on the compensation principle, and provides opinions based on information gathered from the field.

Operation and Maintenance System of Jamuna Multipurpose Bridge Bangladesh

Operation and Maintenance System of Jamuna Multipurpose Bridge Bangladesh

Project risk assessment using the analytic hierarchy process

Construction projects often fail to achieve their time, budget, and quality goals. This is frequently due to the failure of the contractor to analyze and assess all risk factors. The analytic hierarchy process (AHP) is an approach that can be used to analyze and assess project risks during the bidding stage of a construction project and to overcome the limitations of the approaches currently used by contractors. The AHP provides a flexible, easily understood way to assist the decision-maker in formulating a problem in a logical and rational manner. A review of the AHP and a description of its application in the assessment of the riskiness of constructing the Jamuna multipurpose bridge in Bangladesh are included. >