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LATEST NEWS UPDATES | Is concrete the way forward in rebuilding the Sunderbans? -Megnaa Mehtta & Debjani Bhattacharyya

Is concrete the way forward in rebuilding the Sunderbans? -Megnaa Mehtta & Debjani Bhattacharyya

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published Published on Jul 1, 2020   modified Modified on Jul 7, 2020

-The Telegraph

Since 2007, the Bay of Bengal basin has seen at least 15 major cyclones, including Sidr in 2007, Aila in 2009, Phailin in 2013, Hudhud in 2014, Bulbul in 2019 and Amphan this year. Amphan made landfall in the Sunderbans, home to five million people, on May 20. More than 13.2 billion dollars worth of property was destroyed and more than 500,000 people left homeless. An Unesco heritage site, the Sunderbans are known for their biodiversity and the conservation of the Bengal tiger. More recently, it has turned into a site for climate-resilience experiments funded by global agencies. After Cyclone Aila in 2009, the World Bank had allocated a colossal Rs 5,032 crore to the Sundarbans Embankment Reconstruction Project to build ‘modern’ cement and block embankments. These embankments were breached during Amphan, flooding homes, destroying crops and salinating agrarian fields. Before we start rebuilding those embankments, let us consider if more concrete is the best way forward.

Embankments are lifelines. The Sunderbans’ villages — ‘abad’ cleared for human settlement — are located on low-lying islands in a brackish water delta with diurnal tides. This is a unique landscape where the forest is a river. In this shifting landscape, the forest cover swells and shrivels with the ebbs and flows of the twice-daily tides. Islands experience the daily erosion and accretion of soil. During high tide, these islands would be submerged under saline water if it were not for the embankments that allow habitations and agriculture to flourish. Embankments are as old as human habitation in this region.

However, concrete and cinder block embankments of the recent past are like imposed lines in a moving landscape. Sometimes they do more harm than good. In the past decade, a 3,500-kilometre periphery of the Sunderbans islands has seen the transformation from mud embankments (bandhs) to concrete dykes. Concrete embankments are 5 metres high and 30-40 metres wide. Covered by nonbiodegradable polypropylene sheets, the concrete embankments replaced the older mud bandhs. More importantly, several thriving mangrove forests on the riverbed had to be uprooted to transform the bandhs into dykes. Mangroves are natural shock absorbers during cyclones. Without these intricate mangrove roots systems binding the soil, riverbeds begin to gradually weaken.

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The Telegraph, 1 July, 2020, https://www.telegraphindia.com/amp/opinion/is-concrete-the-way-forward-in-rebuilding-the-sunderbans/cid/1784882?__twitter_impression=true


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