Question

Bangladesh is highly vulnerable to climate change. Bangladesh is a highly populated nation (>140 million) and arguably is the state most vulnerable to natural disasters. As climate change raises sea level, warms the oceans, thereby intensifying storm energy and volume of precipitation, and causes greater run-off from the rivers, the millions who inhabit the lowlands will be increasingly in harm’s way. What about the geography of Bangladesh makes them vulnerable to flooding? How might this worsen for the people of Bangladesh, if climate change raises sea levels and warms ocean temperatures, and precipitation intensifies from stronger tropical cyclones and monsoons?

PLEASE CITE REFERENCES AND DO NOT COPY WORD FOR WORD. MUST BE AT LEAST 100 WORDS LONG.

Answer 1

Bangladesh is a coastal country situated near the Bay of Bengal. Since the majority of the rivers drain into the Bay of Bengal from the South East Asia region, the Bay of Bengal is an ideal location for the occurrence of a cyclone/hurricane because the surface sea temperature is naturally high along with the high salinity (Woodward, 2019). Apart from recurring cyclones, the rise in sea level is also submerging some of the regions of Bangladesh as a result people are forced to migrate to India and Myanmar. This has resulted in some ethnical clashes in recent times like the Rohingya massacre.

Leaving aside the disastrous geographical phenomenon, the population density of Bangladesh is enormous (more 140 million). Rising population, resource crunch, and adverse climate change could result in food insecurity and famine in the coming years. Bangladesh linked with rivers like Meghna, Brahmaputra, and Ganga from three sides, as a result, the incident of flood and vector-borne diseases like malaria is also alarmingly high (Afrin, 2012). In recent years, Bangladesh has become very vocal about its plight related to climate change because it is a matter of life and death. If such an issue is not resolved shortly they there would be a surge in the number of ecological refugees.

References:

Afrin, T. (2012). Climate Change and Bangladesh. Retrieved 2 November 2019, from https://www.climateemergencyinstitute.com/bangladesh_1_affrin.html

Woodward, A. (2019). Climate change: Disruption, risk and opportunity. Global Transitions, 1, 44-49. doi: 10.1016/j.glt.2019.02.001