Shashanka SaadiDRR & CCA Expert

Bangladesh

Geographically coastal zone in Bangladesh is extremely vulnerable to cyclone, hurricane, tsunami, tidal surge, beach erosion and salinity intrusion.

Beach erosion, pro-longed tidal water in the coastal town and water logged condition pushing thousands of people to migrate and many of them are sheltered in the disaster vulnerable areas or foothill or on the coastal embankment or migrated in the cities.

Bangladesh coastline is more than 700km comprised about 20 percent of our land mass, and yet they are home to more than 30 millions.

In coastal areas, concentration of people under poverty line is comparatively higher than rest of the country. Potential impact of natural disasters seems to be greater on the coastal communities as they are becoming more vulnerable because of increasing trend of occurrence of hazard and extreme events.

Traditional settlement pattern in the coastal areas are no more climate resilient.

location of shelter and home of the poor are scattered in the vulnerable zones.

The chairman of Southkhali, Sharankhola, Bagerhat lost 8 members of his families just due to the lack of communication system to cyclone shelters.

Spatial planning and land management provide various tools to prevent natural hazards.

Our assertion is that the fields of disaster management, climate change, natural resource and environmental management, and poverty reduction have not been addressed in an integrated way anywhere.

One step would be to design and begin some work along these lines on a modest scale.

Learning from Cyclone Sidr 2007: Planning for Disaster Resilient Compact Village

A good number of people in the vulnerable coastal area did not believe the cyclone Sidr signal as previous warning was not effective at the last minute.

Since there is no provision of cattle shelter in and around the cyclone shelter, many of the hard core poor families did not go to cyclone shelter as they don‟t wanted to leave behind of their cattle being source of their livelihood.

Poor women headed household, families having physically handicapped person, old and disabled living far away from the cyclone shelter were not interested to move for safer shelter.

Accommodation capacity of cyclone shelters are inadequate and not gender friendly.

Lessons Learned and Similar initiatives: SDCs Lesson learned from Bangladesh 1988 and follow up support

in strengthening the traditional model of Killas (raised land -hill for shelter) in Bangladesh. SDC built a hill with the Safe shelter at the central core between the 2 sweet water ponds as shown below.

Core settlement was built around the ponds, which the people expanded and developed on their own.

Following is one of the disaster resilient multi-purpose indigenous material, tools and techniques based shelters in the flood and cyclone prone region in Philippines could be an learning case for Bangladesh:

It is a place for meetings for the villagers and village-committee, for DMT-meetings/trainings, for women SHD, IT-trainings, income generating activities etc. and serves even for public and private festivities. (e.g. weddings)

It is a tool for capacity building, even for local masons hands-on during the construction process. These trained masons go on to build safer houses for the rural poor.

BDT 18 million (260870 USD) is needed to build a 120ft x 30ft size cyclone shelter where 10ft verandah is available. The shelter is usually total 23 feet high from the ground.

The design is „arrow headed‟ to resist wind impacts.

This type of shelter can accommodate 800-1000 persons during emergency.

The best model available is the CARITAS model which has facilities of 4 toilets and two emergency rooms for women and children.

But it cannot provide enough space for cattle, HH assets and properties of the poor and other people. There are issues of lack of ownership, maintenance, gender insensitivity, child unfriendliness, occupation by elite and powerful and lack of accessibilities to the cyclone shelters.

With the same amount, we can build 150 strong houses (20ft x 10 ft size).

At least 1500 person can take shelter during any cyclone and tidal surge.

They can also protect their livestock, poultry and other HH assets, assist their neighbors to get safe place during any cyclonic disasters.

We can establish livelihood options for the poor families in that cluster settlement.

We can start the Palm tree plantation in the vulnerable side to protect the wind and surge impact, and same time, the palm trees will produce oil for the poor families.

The other livelihood options can be linked with their available skills.

In best cases, we don‟t need to relocate the families from their accessible livelihood.

The fisherfolks can easily live near to their livelihood options, the small traders can, the women can and children as well.

The other wheels of „asset pentagon‟ model would be introduced in this cluster settlement.

Living the Principles of

Sustainable Lifestyle

Energy source

• TOTALLY powered by RENEWABLE ENERGY (SOLAR, WINDMILL, BIOGAS-ceremonial lighting of the cooking gas produced by the biogas digester)

• Reducing consumption using even ‘waste’

• Renewable energy, eff, con

• Used WATER (to

recycling pond

• Solid Waste- Methane

for cooking gas and

lights

• LIVING THE

PRINCIPLES

• Teaching by example

and experience

Liquid: Recycling: Solid Waste

Biogas – light and cooking gas

Structural Safety Cyclone resisting structural design

100 years tidal surge safety measures

Saline proof structure

Decision Support Systems; integrating stakeholders for assessing vulnerabilities for critical infrastructures

Adaptation Interventions Renewable energy

Rain water harvesting

Growth Centre based shelters

Air to water technology

Bio-gas digester and

Common grazing land

Social Interventions Common recreational facility Children‟s school program Health Care Educational Programme (schools…)

Livelihood supportive Interventions Common grazing land and mini-dairy farm Common pond for aquaculture Common production centre (handloom, tailoring, handicrafts, bakery

etc.) Kitchen garden / backyard farm

Early warning systems are made up of, and rely upon, four main elements:

Observation and recording Risk knowledge and recognition Warning and dissemination Appropriate response

Local tourist options The communities in eco-habitat may explore the possibilities

of tapping local tourist opportunities. The UNDP, through the Parjatan (Tourism) Corporation and District Development Committee, may initiate a "Tourism for Rural Poverty Alleviation in Coastal Vulnerable Zones" programme as part of which they are exploring the possibilities of ferrying tourists between the place of interests.

Changing policy and practice A major objective of the programme has been to demonstrate

affordable, replicable and sustainable practices in disaster risk reduction which can be incorporated into government and NGOs policy and practice. To this effect UNDP will concentrate its efforts on influencing pro-poor disaster resilient settlement with focus on sustainable livelihood policy at horizontal and vertical level addressing community to Government and the practices of actors at the Disaster Management Committees at Union, Upazila, District and National level. It has also aimed to demonstrate the applicability and relevance of its technological solutions and ways of working both with and through communities.

Linking Development and Disaster risk reduction in terms of saving life, property, assets and relocation.

Learning by establishing an ecologically sound disaster resilient habitat with multiple advantages, economically feasible and environmentally acceptable venture with livelihood opportunities.

Expansion of the strategic role of coastal vulnerable regions and “gateway places”, giving particular attention to the development of peripheral regions.

Promotion of an economic diversification strategy in shelter sites and support for the economic development of coastal areas.

Promotion of integrated settlement development strategies sensitive to social and functional diversity. Particular attention should be given to fighting social exclusion and the recycling and/or restructuring of underused or derelict rural sites and areas.

Promotion of better accessibility through an appropriate location policy and land use planning that will stimulate mixing of service functions and the use of public services including transportation.

Better co-ordination of spatial development policy with sustainable use of natural resources and telecommunications planning.

Coordinated and integrated infrastructure planning and management for avoiding inefficient investments

Wide-ranging integration of knowledge-relevant policies and link it to action research for academic institution for further improvement of the planning and design.

SIDR 2007 exposed that cyclone shelter is not the best solution to face the challenges of climate change impacts. The assumed increased intensity of cyclones and high tidal surges should be considered in cyclone preparedness and DRR programme for the coastal belt.

We need to show the alternatives to the cyclone shelters as most of the cases the profit goes to the pocket of the „contractors‟ rather than the community people.