Sustainable river management in Bangladesh: Challenges and ways forward

Bangladesh is known as a riverine country with its rivers — more than 1,000 in number – stretching about 24,140 km area across the country.

Many rivers crisscross the country from the time immemorial, making Bangladesh a unique landscape. Rivers nourish many biological ecosystems of the country making the whole economy dependent on it. The cultural identity of the country has been also constructed by its rivers. Unfortunately, incessantly emitting pollutants into the rivers and several other mismanagements have already jeopardised the riverine culture of Bangladesh. Hence, a sustainable river management is a time-befitting demand to help retrieve the cultural treasure of the country. It is also needed to boost up the economy of Bangladesh.

Bangladesh occupies a big deltaic land in the globe. More than 700 rivers majoring Padma, Meghna, Jumna, Brahmaputra, and Buriganga are particularly contributing to the many facets of the country for a long time. As many as 57 international rivers flow inside the country supporting agriculture, livelihoods, fisheries and transportation. Many festivals, traditions and communities are dependent on rivers in the country.

Sustaining the canal-water flow by the rivers confirms the irrigation support of the farmers which is crucial in our agriculture. It also confirms the productivity of the fishing by natural reproductively inputting the economic rigor of the fishermen. Still, the rivers support the 70% demands for fishes in the country. The rivers with their canals system inside the country allow a very low-cost transportation system by many riverine vehicles supporting the import-export system of the country.

It also allows the low fossil fuel burning in product transportation impacting the global climate change positively. The low economic residents of the country feels ease on this system. Rivers not only contributed to the tangible culture of the country but also produced a non-tangible abstract culture. So many festivals including rituals and traditions have emerged based on the rivers. Many newly accreted char (dried-up riverbed) lands are now the hotspots of the eco-tourism. It regulates huge economic activities in the country.

Plantations, agriculture, fishing, boating and boat race are the attraction of the tourists. On the other hand, many historical towns/cities of the country had been established on the bank of the rivers that carry out innumerable economic activities. All of these activities have compelled the resident communities to be dependent on rivers in the country.

However, it is our grave concern that rivers in the country are facing a severe challenges including the filthy pollution, encroachment and dredging by the influential groups and the global climate change.

Industrial wastes especially in the Buriganga, Brahmaputra, Sitalakhya, Halda and Karnafully rivers are a serious concern now. The rivers flowing beside Dhaka and Chittagong city corporations have been transformed to seriously ill in the meantime because of the pollution.
Not only industrial wastes, but agricultural runoff and urban sewages are impacting negatively to these rivers constantly. This pollution is destabilising the public health and hampering the biodiversity. It is producing the ripple effects in other ecosystems of the country. Other grimy activities towards rivers are the encroachment of the river-banks and unregulated dredging by the powerful, authoritative persons of the society.

Many rivers have been made narrow by this process in the meantime. Unregulated dredging made the rivers vulnerable in the rainy season to river-bank erosion. Checking these heinous grabbing activities has been made almost impossible in the country for decades now.

Global climate change also is impacting the rivers in Bangladesh greatly. Due to this, erratic rainfall pattern, monsoonal concentration and sea level rise already has affected the rivers in the country. Many silted rivers have been made shallow in the meantime. So, the heavy rainfall in the concentrated monsoonal period is creating serious flash floods in many parts of the country impacting the local livelihoods of the communities and agriculture. It often jeopardizes and lacks the movement of the agricultural products throughout the country.

It pushed up the price of the agricultural commodities in many parts of the country. Sea level rise has already increased the salinity of the coastal rivers hampering the productivity of the fresh water fishes. It is also posing the serious threats to agriculture. The complete effects of the global climate change are changing the whole water resources, altering all the biodiversity and ecosystem status of the country.
Given the situation, there is no way to keep silent. It is high time we saved our rivers as the bloodstream of our culture and economy. For this, we should go for an integrated river basin management. It needs a holistic approach considering complete water resources, land uses and the needs of the people. River-dependent people possess the traditional knowledge on river management.

We should utilise the knowledge to improve the river management and save them from the destruction. In addition to this, it must be done in the participatory approach. Bangladesh has several legal frameworks supporting the river management already. It seems that we failed to use those instruments to improve our water resources in the country. This is not due to the limitation of the frameworks, but for our lack of implementation capability, I think.

We have already National Water Policy-1999, Bangladesh Water Act-2013, National River Conservation Strategy-2005, Environmental Conservation Act-1995, National Policy for Water Service-2007 among other laws and regulations. These legal frameworks are good in number and size to improve the water resources in the country.

We should find our limitations why we fail to use those frameworks to properly manage the rivers sustainably. I comprehend that if the state takes the matter seriously thinking the breadth of the issues, we can go ahead with the sustainable river management in the country. It must have to possess the sustainable practices of water resources including controlled fishing and reducing plastic uses. By this, we must have to revitalise the natural vegetation along the river banks.

The Surma river basin initiative is one example of the integrated water resources management in Bangladesh initiated in 2012. It attempted to promote sustainable management and development of the Surma river basin covering much parts of the northeastern side of the country. It worked on the water quality, flood management. In addition, it encompassed the issue of whole health of the river ecosystem.

It engaged multitier stakeholders considering local communities, government agencies, and NGOs for the sustainable use of the river resources.

“Clean the Buriganga” was another initiative in the country, launched in 2009 to improve the overall health of the Buriganga River reducing the pollution in the rivers. It also used the multi-stakeholder approach. It is the time to know the status quo of those initiatives and go ahead with a review. How much were those successful and what were the limitations and constraints of those? Learning from the mistakes is crucial to go ahead. Let us get an aspiration to uphold a healthy river system in Bangladesh.

We need the sustainable river system not only for the safety of environmental issues, but for the sake of our culture and economy. We should understand that the destruction of the river system in Bangladesh will destabilise the livelihoods, agriculture, fisheries, transportation, festivals, and traditions and overall we will lose our cultural contents and hamper our economy. Many biological ecosystems will be disrupted by this process which will change our lifestyle negatively. So, it is high time we went ahead with the sustainable river management in Bangladesh.

Md Danesh Miah is a professor at the Institute of Forestry and Environmental Sciences of Chittagong University