Geography Coursework: Bangledeshi Floods
DEVESTATING FLOODS HIT BANGLADESH!!
Bangladesh is a country already tied down by huge economic debts, poverty and now a major flood – the biggest in 20 years. River floods occur when the amount of water flowing in a drainage basin or watershed (the area that collects and directs the surface
Water into the streams that drain it) exceeds the carrying capacity of rivers
Which drain the area. The annual monsoon’s that hit the bengali coast lashed down, causing two of the biggest rivers in Asia, the River Ganges and the River Brahmaputra, to but there banks, thus flooding the capital city Dhaka and other key areas. Also as a result of this flood, one of the main Bengali exports and item of trade, rice, has been more or less lost. This will cause a severe dent in Bangladeshi’s already floundeing economy. With the estimated clean up cost of the flood being the highest in the country’s history, It looks like the Bengali government will have to plunge there country further into debt.
Of the 126 million people living on this south – Asian delta, 83% of them live in rural areas, mainly farming rice and wheat on fertile areas of land, which are unfortunatly prone to flooding each year. Most of the countries crops have been destroyed, causing another problem for the government of Bangladesh. The astonishing 230 rivers in Bangladesh flood an area around the size of Wales and Scotland put together, and with more then 50% of land being below 15m of sea level, the floods are able to cover a larger area, and homes are being built on lower land – increasing vunrebility.
The question many people around the world want to know is: Are These Floods A Natural Occurance or Are The Floods A Result Of Human Activity? The floods in Bangladesh arent always seen as negative occurences, the annual floods that take place deposit silt and minerals on the land that makes it fertile to farm on, the floods of relative low frequency but are usually big are not seen as good and are usually devastating. The heavy monsoon downpour and the major rivers, flood-peaking at the same time are generally considered to be the main causes of the floods, however with the local sea levels rising, deforestation of the upstream areas of the two main rivers, steep population and economic growth, Is it human activity causing these monster floods? The people of Bangladesh generally blame the Nepalese farmers and the Indian and Bhurmese governments for these ‘freak floods’ which do not usually occur. I asked Sarah Nayeem, A Bengali Accountant who lives in Dhaka, Who she thinks is too blame for the floods?