Deprecated (16384): The ArrayAccess methods will be removed in 4.0.0.Use getParam(), getData() and getQuery() instead. - /home/brlfuser/public_html/src/Controller/ArtileDetailController.php, line: 73
 You can disable deprecation warnings by setting `Error.errorLevel` to `E_ALL & ~E_USER_DEPRECATED` in your config/app.php. [CORE/src/Core/functions.php, line 311]
Code Context


        trigger_error($message, E_USER_DEPRECATED);

    }
$message = 'The ArrayAccess methods will be removed in 4.0.0.Use getParam(), getData() and getQuery() instead. - /home/brlfuser/public_html/src/Controller/ArtileDetailController.php, line: 73
 You can disable deprecation warnings by setting `Error.errorLevel` to `E_ALL & ~E_USER_DEPRECATED` in your config/app.php.'
$stackFrame = (int) 1
$trace = [
	(int) 0 => [
		'file' => '/home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Http/ServerRequest.php',
		'line' => (int) 2421,
		'function' => 'deprecationWarning',
		'args' => [
			(int) 0 => 'The ArrayAccess methods will be removed in 4.0.0.Use getParam(), getData() and getQuery() instead.'
		]
	],
	(int) 1 => [
		'file' => '/home/brlfuser/public_html/src/Controller/ArtileDetailController.php',
		'line' => (int) 73,
		'function' => 'offsetGet',
		'class' => 'Cake\Http\ServerRequest',
		'object' => object(Cake\Http\ServerRequest) {},
		'type' => '->',
		'args' => [
			(int) 0 => 'catslug'
		]
	],
	(int) 2 => [
		'file' => '/home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Controller/Controller.php',
		'line' => (int) 610,
		'function' => 'printArticle',
		'class' => 'App\Controller\ArtileDetailController',
		'object' => object(App\Controller\ArtileDetailController) {},
		'type' => '->',
		'args' => []
	],
	(int) 3 => [
		'file' => '/home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Http/ActionDispatcher.php',
		'line' => (int) 120,
		'function' => 'invokeAction',
		'class' => 'Cake\Controller\Controller',
		'object' => object(App\Controller\ArtileDetailController) {},
		'type' => '->',
		'args' => []
	],
	(int) 4 => [
		'file' => '/home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Http/ActionDispatcher.php',
		'line' => (int) 94,
		'function' => '_invoke',
		'class' => 'Cake\Http\ActionDispatcher',
		'object' => object(Cake\Http\ActionDispatcher) {},
		'type' => '->',
		'args' => [
			(int) 0 => object(App\Controller\ArtileDetailController) {}
		]
	],
	(int) 5 => [
		'file' => '/home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Http/BaseApplication.php',
		'line' => (int) 235,
		'function' => 'dispatch',
		'class' => 'Cake\Http\ActionDispatcher',
		'object' => object(Cake\Http\ActionDispatcher) {},
		'type' => '->',
		'args' => [
			(int) 0 => object(Cake\Http\ServerRequest) {},
			(int) 1 => object(Cake\Http\Response) {}
		]
	],
	(int) 6 => [
		'file' => '/home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Http/Runner.php',
		'line' => (int) 65,
		'function' => '__invoke',
		'class' => 'Cake\Http\BaseApplication',
		'object' => object(App\Application) {},
		'type' => '->',
		'args' => [
			(int) 0 => object(Cake\Http\ServerRequest) {},
			(int) 1 => object(Cake\Http\Response) {},
			(int) 2 => object(Cake\Http\Runner) {}
		]
	],
	(int) 7 => [
		'file' => '/home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Routing/Middleware/RoutingMiddleware.php',
		'line' => (int) 162,
		'function' => '__invoke',
		'class' => 'Cake\Http\Runner',
		'object' => object(Cake\Http\Runner) {},
		'type' => '->',
		'args' => [
			(int) 0 => object(Cake\Http\ServerRequest) {},
			(int) 1 => object(Cake\Http\Response) {}
		]
	],
	(int) 8 => [
		'file' => '/home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Http/Runner.php',
		'line' => (int) 65,
		'function' => '__invoke',
		'class' => 'Cake\Routing\Middleware\RoutingMiddleware',
		'object' => object(Cake\Routing\Middleware\RoutingMiddleware) {},
		'type' => '->',
		'args' => [
			(int) 0 => object(Cake\Http\ServerRequest) {},
			(int) 1 => object(Cake\Http\Response) {},
			(int) 2 => object(Cake\Http\Runner) {}
		]
	],
	(int) 9 => [
		'file' => '/home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Routing/Middleware/AssetMiddleware.php',
		'line' => (int) 88,
		'function' => '__invoke',
		'class' => 'Cake\Http\Runner',
		'object' => object(Cake\Http\Runner) {},
		'type' => '->',
		'args' => [
			(int) 0 => object(Cake\Http\ServerRequest) {},
			(int) 1 => object(Cake\Http\Response) {}
		]
	],
	(int) 10 => [
		'file' => '/home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Http/Runner.php',
		'line' => (int) 65,
		'function' => '__invoke',
		'class' => 'Cake\Routing\Middleware\AssetMiddleware',
		'object' => object(Cake\Routing\Middleware\AssetMiddleware) {},
		'type' => '->',
		'args' => [
			(int) 0 => object(Cake\Http\ServerRequest) {},
			(int) 1 => object(Cake\Http\Response) {},
			(int) 2 => object(Cake\Http\Runner) {}
		]
	],
	(int) 11 => [
		'file' => '/home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Error/Middleware/ErrorHandlerMiddleware.php',
		'line' => (int) 96,
		'function' => '__invoke',
		'class' => 'Cake\Http\Runner',
		'object' => object(Cake\Http\Runner) {},
		'type' => '->',
		'args' => [
			(int) 0 => object(Cake\Http\ServerRequest) {},
			(int) 1 => object(Cake\Http\Response) {}
		]
	],
	(int) 12 => [
		'file' => '/home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Http/Runner.php',
		'line' => (int) 65,
		'function' => '__invoke',
		'class' => 'Cake\Error\Middleware\ErrorHandlerMiddleware',
		'object' => object(Cake\Error\Middleware\ErrorHandlerMiddleware) {},
		'type' => '->',
		'args' => [
			(int) 0 => object(Cake\Http\ServerRequest) {},
			(int) 1 => object(Cake\Http\Response) {},
			(int) 2 => object(Cake\Http\Runner) {}
		]
	],
	(int) 13 => [
		'file' => '/home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Http/Runner.php',
		'line' => (int) 51,
		'function' => '__invoke',
		'class' => 'Cake\Http\Runner',
		'object' => object(Cake\Http\Runner) {},
		'type' => '->',
		'args' => [
			(int) 0 => object(Cake\Http\ServerRequest) {},
			(int) 1 => object(Cake\Http\Response) {}
		]
	],
	(int) 14 => [
		'file' => '/home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Http/Server.php',
		'line' => (int) 98,
		'function' => 'run',
		'class' => 'Cake\Http\Runner',
		'object' => object(Cake\Http\Runner) {},
		'type' => '->',
		'args' => [
			(int) 0 => object(Cake\Http\MiddlewareQueue) {},
			(int) 1 => object(Cake\Http\ServerRequest) {},
			(int) 2 => object(Cake\Http\Response) {}
		]
	],
	(int) 15 => [
		'file' => '/home/brlfuser/public_html/webroot/index.php',
		'line' => (int) 39,
		'function' => 'run',
		'class' => 'Cake\Http\Server',
		'object' => object(Cake\Http\Server) {},
		'type' => '->',
		'args' => []
	]
]
$frame = [
	'file' => '/home/brlfuser/public_html/src/Controller/ArtileDetailController.php',
	'line' => (int) 73,
	'function' => 'offsetGet',
	'class' => 'Cake\Http\ServerRequest',
	'object' => object(Cake\Http\ServerRequest) {
		trustProxy => false
		[protected] params => [
			[maximum depth reached]
		]
		[protected] data => [[maximum depth reached]]
		[protected] query => [[maximum depth reached]]
		[protected] cookies => [
			[maximum depth reached]
		]
		[protected] _environment => [
			[maximum depth reached]
		]
		[protected] url => 'latest-news-updates/concrete-and-cinder-block-embankments-sometimes-they-do-more-harm-than-good/print'
		[protected] base => ''
		[protected] webroot => '/'
		[protected] here => '/latest-news-updates/concrete-and-cinder-block-embankments-sometimes-they-do-more-harm-than-good/print'
		[protected] trustedProxies => [[maximum depth reached]]
		[protected] _input => null
		[protected] _detectors => [
			[maximum depth reached]
		]
		[protected] _detectorCache => [
			[maximum depth reached]
		]
		[protected] stream => object(Zend\Diactoros\PhpInputStream) {}
		[protected] uri => object(Zend\Diactoros\Uri) {}
		[protected] session => object(Cake\Http\Session) {}
		[protected] attributes => [[maximum depth reached]]
		[protected] emulatedAttributes => [
			[maximum depth reached]
		]
		[protected] uploadedFiles => [[maximum depth reached]]
		[protected] protocol => null
		[protected] requestTarget => null
		[private] deprecatedProperties => [
			[maximum depth reached]
		]
	},
	'type' => '->',
	'args' => [
		(int) 0 => 'catslug'
	]
]
deprecationWarning - CORE/src/Core/functions.php, line 311
Cake\Http\ServerRequest::offsetGet() - CORE/src/Http/ServerRequest.php, line 2421
App\Controller\ArtileDetailController::printArticle() - APP/Controller/ArtileDetailController.php, line 73
Cake\Controller\Controller::invokeAction() - CORE/src/Controller/Controller.php, line 610
Cake\Http\ActionDispatcher::_invoke() - CORE/src/Http/ActionDispatcher.php, line 120
Cake\Http\ActionDispatcher::dispatch() - CORE/src/Http/ActionDispatcher.php, line 94
Cake\Http\BaseApplication::__invoke() - CORE/src/Http/BaseApplication.php, line 235
Cake\Http\Runner::__invoke() - CORE/src/Http/Runner.php, line 65
Cake\Routing\Middleware\RoutingMiddleware::__invoke() - CORE/src/Routing/Middleware/RoutingMiddleware.php, line 162
Cake\Http\Runner::__invoke() - CORE/src/Http/Runner.php, line 65
Cake\Routing\Middleware\AssetMiddleware::__invoke() - CORE/src/Routing/Middleware/AssetMiddleware.php, line 88
Cake\Http\Runner::__invoke() - CORE/src/Http/Runner.php, line 65
Cake\Error\Middleware\ErrorHandlerMiddleware::__invoke() - CORE/src/Error/Middleware/ErrorHandlerMiddleware.php, line 96
Cake\Http\Runner::__invoke() - CORE/src/Http/Runner.php, line 65
Cake\Http\Runner::run() - CORE/src/Http/Runner.php, line 51
Cake\Http\Server::run() - CORE/src/Http/Server.php, line 98

Deprecated (16384): The ArrayAccess methods will be removed in 4.0.0.Use getParam(), getData() and getQuery() instead. - /home/brlfuser/public_html/src/Controller/ArtileDetailController.php, line: 74
 You can disable deprecation warnings by setting `Error.errorLevel` to `E_ALL & ~E_USER_DEPRECATED` in your config/app.php. [CORE/src/Core/functions.php, line 311]
Code Context


        trigger_error($message, E_USER_DEPRECATED);

    }
$message = 'The ArrayAccess methods will be removed in 4.0.0.Use getParam(), getData() and getQuery() instead. - /home/brlfuser/public_html/src/Controller/ArtileDetailController.php, line: 74
 You can disable deprecation warnings by setting `Error.errorLevel` to `E_ALL & ~E_USER_DEPRECATED` in your config/app.php.'
$stackFrame = (int) 1
$trace = [
	(int) 0 => [
		'file' => '/home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Http/ServerRequest.php',
		'line' => (int) 2421,
		'function' => 'deprecationWarning',
		'args' => [
			(int) 0 => 'The ArrayAccess methods will be removed in 4.0.0.Use getParam(), getData() and getQuery() instead.'
		]
	],
	(int) 1 => [
		'file' => '/home/brlfuser/public_html/src/Controller/ArtileDetailController.php',
		'line' => (int) 74,
		'function' => 'offsetGet',
		'class' => 'Cake\Http\ServerRequest',
		'object' => object(Cake\Http\ServerRequest) {},
		'type' => '->',
		'args' => [
			(int) 0 => 'artileslug'
		]
	],
	(int) 2 => [
		'file' => '/home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Controller/Controller.php',
		'line' => (int) 610,
		'function' => 'printArticle',
		'class' => 'App\Controller\ArtileDetailController',
		'object' => object(App\Controller\ArtileDetailController) {},
		'type' => '->',
		'args' => []
	],
	(int) 3 => [
		'file' => '/home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Http/ActionDispatcher.php',
		'line' => (int) 120,
		'function' => 'invokeAction',
		'class' => 'Cake\Controller\Controller',
		'object' => object(App\Controller\ArtileDetailController) {},
		'type' => '->',
		'args' => []
	],
	(int) 4 => [
		'file' => '/home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Http/ActionDispatcher.php',
		'line' => (int) 94,
		'function' => '_invoke',
		'class' => 'Cake\Http\ActionDispatcher',
		'object' => object(Cake\Http\ActionDispatcher) {},
		'type' => '->',
		'args' => [
			(int) 0 => object(App\Controller\ArtileDetailController) {}
		]
	],
	(int) 5 => [
		'file' => '/home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Http/BaseApplication.php',
		'line' => (int) 235,
		'function' => 'dispatch',
		'class' => 'Cake\Http\ActionDispatcher',
		'object' => object(Cake\Http\ActionDispatcher) {},
		'type' => '->',
		'args' => [
			(int) 0 => object(Cake\Http\ServerRequest) {},
			(int) 1 => object(Cake\Http\Response) {}
		]
	],
	(int) 6 => [
		'file' => '/home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Http/Runner.php',
		'line' => (int) 65,
		'function' => '__invoke',
		'class' => 'Cake\Http\BaseApplication',
		'object' => object(App\Application) {},
		'type' => '->',
		'args' => [
			(int) 0 => object(Cake\Http\ServerRequest) {},
			(int) 1 => object(Cake\Http\Response) {},
			(int) 2 => object(Cake\Http\Runner) {}
		]
	],
	(int) 7 => [
		'file' => '/home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Routing/Middleware/RoutingMiddleware.php',
		'line' => (int) 162,
		'function' => '__invoke',
		'class' => 'Cake\Http\Runner',
		'object' => object(Cake\Http\Runner) {},
		'type' => '->',
		'args' => [
			(int) 0 => object(Cake\Http\ServerRequest) {},
			(int) 1 => object(Cake\Http\Response) {}
		]
	],
	(int) 8 => [
		'file' => '/home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Http/Runner.php',
		'line' => (int) 65,
		'function' => '__invoke',
		'class' => 'Cake\Routing\Middleware\RoutingMiddleware',
		'object' => object(Cake\Routing\Middleware\RoutingMiddleware) {},
		'type' => '->',
		'args' => [
			(int) 0 => object(Cake\Http\ServerRequest) {},
			(int) 1 => object(Cake\Http\Response) {},
			(int) 2 => object(Cake\Http\Runner) {}
		]
	],
	(int) 9 => [
		'file' => '/home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Routing/Middleware/AssetMiddleware.php',
		'line' => (int) 88,
		'function' => '__invoke',
		'class' => 'Cake\Http\Runner',
		'object' => object(Cake\Http\Runner) {},
		'type' => '->',
		'args' => [
			(int) 0 => object(Cake\Http\ServerRequest) {},
			(int) 1 => object(Cake\Http\Response) {}
		]
	],
	(int) 10 => [
		'file' => '/home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Http/Runner.php',
		'line' => (int) 65,
		'function' => '__invoke',
		'class' => 'Cake\Routing\Middleware\AssetMiddleware',
		'object' => object(Cake\Routing\Middleware\AssetMiddleware) {},
		'type' => '->',
		'args' => [
			(int) 0 => object(Cake\Http\ServerRequest) {},
			(int) 1 => object(Cake\Http\Response) {},
			(int) 2 => object(Cake\Http\Runner) {}
		]
	],
	(int) 11 => [
		'file' => '/home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Error/Middleware/ErrorHandlerMiddleware.php',
		'line' => (int) 96,
		'function' => '__invoke',
		'class' => 'Cake\Http\Runner',
		'object' => object(Cake\Http\Runner) {},
		'type' => '->',
		'args' => [
			(int) 0 => object(Cake\Http\ServerRequest) {},
			(int) 1 => object(Cake\Http\Response) {}
		]
	],
	(int) 12 => [
		'file' => '/home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Http/Runner.php',
		'line' => (int) 65,
		'function' => '__invoke',
		'class' => 'Cake\Error\Middleware\ErrorHandlerMiddleware',
		'object' => object(Cake\Error\Middleware\ErrorHandlerMiddleware) {},
		'type' => '->',
		'args' => [
			(int) 0 => object(Cake\Http\ServerRequest) {},
			(int) 1 => object(Cake\Http\Response) {},
			(int) 2 => object(Cake\Http\Runner) {}
		]
	],
	(int) 13 => [
		'file' => '/home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Http/Runner.php',
		'line' => (int) 51,
		'function' => '__invoke',
		'class' => 'Cake\Http\Runner',
		'object' => object(Cake\Http\Runner) {},
		'type' => '->',
		'args' => [
			(int) 0 => object(Cake\Http\ServerRequest) {},
			(int) 1 => object(Cake\Http\Response) {}
		]
	],
	(int) 14 => [
		'file' => '/home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Http/Server.php',
		'line' => (int) 98,
		'function' => 'run',
		'class' => 'Cake\Http\Runner',
		'object' => object(Cake\Http\Runner) {},
		'type' => '->',
		'args' => [
			(int) 0 => object(Cake\Http\MiddlewareQueue) {},
			(int) 1 => object(Cake\Http\ServerRequest) {},
			(int) 2 => object(Cake\Http\Response) {}
		]
	],
	(int) 15 => [
		'file' => '/home/brlfuser/public_html/webroot/index.php',
		'line' => (int) 39,
		'function' => 'run',
		'class' => 'Cake\Http\Server',
		'object' => object(Cake\Http\Server) {},
		'type' => '->',
		'args' => []
	]
]
$frame = [
	'file' => '/home/brlfuser/public_html/src/Controller/ArtileDetailController.php',
	'line' => (int) 74,
	'function' => 'offsetGet',
	'class' => 'Cake\Http\ServerRequest',
	'object' => object(Cake\Http\ServerRequest) {
		trustProxy => false
		[protected] params => [
			[maximum depth reached]
		]
		[protected] data => [[maximum depth reached]]
		[protected] query => [[maximum depth reached]]
		[protected] cookies => [
			[maximum depth reached]
		]
		[protected] _environment => [
			[maximum depth reached]
		]
		[protected] url => 'latest-news-updates/concrete-and-cinder-block-embankments-sometimes-they-do-more-harm-than-good/print'
		[protected] base => ''
		[protected] webroot => '/'
		[protected] here => '/latest-news-updates/concrete-and-cinder-block-embankments-sometimes-they-do-more-harm-than-good/print'
		[protected] trustedProxies => [[maximum depth reached]]
		[protected] _input => null
		[protected] _detectors => [
			[maximum depth reached]
		]
		[protected] _detectorCache => [
			[maximum depth reached]
		]
		[protected] stream => object(Zend\Diactoros\PhpInputStream) {}
		[protected] uri => object(Zend\Diactoros\Uri) {}
		[protected] session => object(Cake\Http\Session) {}
		[protected] attributes => [[maximum depth reached]]
		[protected] emulatedAttributes => [
			[maximum depth reached]
		]
		[protected] uploadedFiles => [[maximum depth reached]]
		[protected] protocol => null
		[protected] requestTarget => null
		[private] deprecatedProperties => [
			[maximum depth reached]
		]
	},
	'type' => '->',
	'args' => [
		(int) 0 => 'artileslug'
	]
]
deprecationWarning - CORE/src/Core/functions.php, line 311
Cake\Http\ServerRequest::offsetGet() - CORE/src/Http/ServerRequest.php, line 2421
App\Controller\ArtileDetailController::printArticle() - APP/Controller/ArtileDetailController.php, line 74
Cake\Controller\Controller::invokeAction() - CORE/src/Controller/Controller.php, line 610
Cake\Http\ActionDispatcher::_invoke() - CORE/src/Http/ActionDispatcher.php, line 120
Cake\Http\ActionDispatcher::dispatch() - CORE/src/Http/ActionDispatcher.php, line 94
Cake\Http\BaseApplication::__invoke() - CORE/src/Http/BaseApplication.php, line 235
Cake\Http\Runner::__invoke() - CORE/src/Http/Runner.php, line 65
Cake\Routing\Middleware\RoutingMiddleware::__invoke() - CORE/src/Routing/Middleware/RoutingMiddleware.php, line 162
Cake\Http\Runner::__invoke() - CORE/src/Http/Runner.php, line 65
Cake\Routing\Middleware\AssetMiddleware::__invoke() - CORE/src/Routing/Middleware/AssetMiddleware.php, line 88
Cake\Http\Runner::__invoke() - CORE/src/Http/Runner.php, line 65
Cake\Error\Middleware\ErrorHandlerMiddleware::__invoke() - CORE/src/Error/Middleware/ErrorHandlerMiddleware.php, line 96
Cake\Http\Runner::__invoke() - CORE/src/Http/Runner.php, line 65
Cake\Http\Runner::run() - CORE/src/Http/Runner.php, line 51
Cake\Http\Server::run() - CORE/src/Http/Server.php, line 98

Warning (512): Unable to emit headers. Headers sent in file=/home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Error/Debugger.php line=853 [CORE/src/Http/ResponseEmitter.php, line 48]
Code Context
            if (Configure::read('debug')) {

                trigger_error($message, E_USER_WARNING);

            } else {
$response = object(Cake\Http\Response) {

	'status' => (int) 200,
	'contentType' => 'text/html',
	'headers' => [
		'Content-Type' => [
			[maximum depth reached]
		]
	],
	'file' => null,
	'fileRange' => [],
	'cookies' => object(Cake\Http\Cookie\CookieCollection) {},
	'cacheDirectives' => [],
	'body' => '<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN"
        "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
<head>
    <link rel="canonical" href="https://im4change.in/<pre class="cake-error"><a href="javascript:void(0);" onclick="document.getElementById('cakeErr67f0cb5ff1778-trace').style.display = (document.getElementById('cakeErr67f0cb5ff1778-trace').style.display == 'none' ? '' : 'none');"><b>Notice</b> (8)</a>: Undefined variable: urlPrefix [<b>APP/Template/Layout/printlayout.ctp</b>, line <b>8</b>]<div id="cakeErr67f0cb5ff1778-trace" class="cake-stack-trace" style="display: none;"><a href="javascript:void(0);" onclick="document.getElementById('cakeErr67f0cb5ff1778-code').style.display = (document.getElementById('cakeErr67f0cb5ff1778-code').style.display == 'none' ? '' : 'none')">Code</a> <a href="javascript:void(0);" onclick="document.getElementById('cakeErr67f0cb5ff1778-context').style.display = (document.getElementById('cakeErr67f0cb5ff1778-context').style.display == 'none' ? '' : 'none')">Context</a><pre id="cakeErr67f0cb5ff1778-code" class="cake-code-dump" style="display: none;"><code><span style="color: #000000"><span style="color: #0000BB"></span><span style="color: #007700">&lt;</span><span style="color: #0000BB">head</span><span style="color: #007700">&gt;
</span></span></code>
<span class="code-highlight"><code><span style="color: #000000">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&lt;link&nbsp;rel="canonical"&nbsp;href="<span style="color: #0000BB">&lt;?php&nbsp;</span><span style="color: #007700">echo&nbsp;</span><span style="color: #0000BB">Configure</span><span style="color: #007700">::</span><span style="color: #0000BB">read</span><span style="color: #007700">(</span><span style="color: #DD0000">'SITE_URL'</span><span style="color: #007700">);&nbsp;</span><span style="color: #0000BB">?&gt;&lt;?php&nbsp;</span><span style="color: #007700">echo&nbsp;</span><span style="color: #0000BB">$urlPrefix</span><span style="color: #007700">;</span><span style="color: #0000BB">?&gt;&lt;?php&nbsp;</span><span style="color: #007700">echo&nbsp;</span><span style="color: #0000BB">$article_current</span><span style="color: #007700">-&gt;</span><span style="color: #0000BB">category</span><span style="color: #007700">-&gt;</span><span style="color: #0000BB">slug</span><span style="color: #007700">;&nbsp;</span><span style="color: #0000BB">?&gt;</span>/<span style="color: #0000BB">&lt;?php&nbsp;</span><span style="color: #007700">echo&nbsp;</span><span style="color: #0000BB">$article_current</span><span style="color: #007700">-&gt;</span><span style="color: #0000BB">seo_url</span><span style="color: #007700">;&nbsp;</span><span style="color: #0000BB">?&gt;</span>.html"/&gt;
</span></code></span>
<code><span style="color: #000000"><span style="color: #0000BB">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</span><span style="color: #007700">&lt;</span><span style="color: #0000BB">meta&nbsp;http</span><span style="color: #007700">-</span><span style="color: #0000BB">equiv</span><span style="color: #007700">=</span><span style="color: #DD0000">"Content-Type"&nbsp;</span><span style="color: #0000BB">content</span><span style="color: #007700">=</span><span style="color: #DD0000">"text/html;&nbsp;charset=utf-8"</span><span style="color: #007700">/&gt;
</span></span></code></pre><pre id="cakeErr67f0cb5ff1778-context" class="cake-context" style="display: none;">$viewFile = &#039;/home/brlfuser/public_html/src/Template/Layout/printlayout.ctp&#039;
$dataForView = [
	&#039;article_current&#039; =&gt; object(App\Model\Entity\Article) {

		&#039;id&#039; =&gt; (int) 56278,
		&#039;title&#039; =&gt; &#039;Is concrete the way forward in rebuilding the Sunderbans? -Megnaa Mehtta &amp; Debjani Bhattacharyya&#039;,
		&#039;subheading&#039; =&gt; null,
		&#039;description&#039; =&gt; &#039;&lt;p style=&quot;text-align:justify&quot;&gt;-The Telegraph&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p style=&quot;text-align:justify&quot;&gt;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 &amp;lsquo;modern&amp;rsquo; 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.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p style=&quot;text-align:justify&quot;&gt;Embankments are lifelines. The Sunderbans&amp;rsquo; villages &amp;mdash; &amp;lsquo;abad&amp;rsquo; cleared for human settlement &amp;mdash; 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.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p style=&quot;text-align:justify&quot;&gt;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.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p style=&quot;text-align:justify&quot;&gt;Please &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.telegraphindia.com/amp/opinion/is-concrete-the-way-forward-in-rebuilding-the-sunderbans/cid/1784882?__twitter_impression=true&quot;&gt;click here&lt;/a&gt; to read more.&lt;/p&gt;
&#039;,
		&#039;credit_writer&#039; =&gt; &#039;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&#039;,
		&#039;article_img&#039; =&gt; &#039;&#039;,
		&#039;article_img_thumb&#039; =&gt; &#039;&#039;,
		&#039;status&#039; =&gt; (int) 1,
		&#039;show_on_home&#039; =&gt; (int) 1,
		&#039;lang&#039; =&gt; &#039;EN&#039;,
		&#039;category_id&#039; =&gt; (int) 16,
		&#039;tag_keyword&#039; =&gt; &#039;&#039;,
		&#039;seo_url&#039; =&gt; &#039;concrete-and-cinder-block-embankments-sometimes-they-do-more-harm-than-good&#039;,
		&#039;meta_title&#039; =&gt; &#039;&#039;,
		&#039;meta_keywords&#039; =&gt; &#039;&#039;,
		&#039;meta_description&#039; =&gt; &#039;&#039;,
		&#039;noindex&#039; =&gt; (int) 1,
		&#039;publish_date&#039; =&gt; object(Cake\I18n\FrozenDate) {},
		&#039;most_visit_section_id&#039; =&gt; null,
		&#039;article_big_img&#039; =&gt; null,
		&#039;liveid&#039; =&gt; null,
		&#039;created&#039; =&gt; object(Cake\I18n\FrozenTime) {},
		&#039;modified&#039; =&gt; object(Cake\I18n\FrozenTime) {},
		&#039;edate&#039; =&gt; &#039;&#039;,
		&#039;tags&#039; =&gt; [
			[maximum depth reached]
		],
		&#039;category&#039; =&gt; object(App\Model\Entity\Category) {},
		&#039;[new]&#039; =&gt; false,
		&#039;[accessible]&#039; =&gt; [
			[maximum depth reached]
		],
		&#039;[dirty]&#039; =&gt; [[maximum depth reached]],
		&#039;[original]&#039; =&gt; [[maximum depth reached]],
		&#039;[virtual]&#039; =&gt; [[maximum depth reached]],
		&#039;[hasErrors]&#039; =&gt; false,
		&#039;[errors]&#039; =&gt; [[maximum depth reached]],
		&#039;[invalid]&#039; =&gt; [[maximum depth reached]],
		&#039;[repository]&#039; =&gt; &#039;Articles&#039;
	
	},
	&#039;articleid&#039; =&gt; (int) 56278,
	&#039;metaTitle&#039; =&gt; &#039;LATEST NEWS UPDATES | Is concrete the way forward in rebuilding the Sunderbans? -Megnaa Mehtta &amp; Debjani Bhattacharyya&#039;,
	&#039;metaKeywords&#039; =&gt; &#039;Cyclone Amphan,Concrete Embankments,Cinder Block Concrete Embankments,Sunderbans&#039;,
	&#039;metaDesc&#039; =&gt; &#039;-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...&#039;,
	&#039;disp&#039; =&gt; &#039;&lt;p style=&quot;text-align:justify&quot;&gt;-The Telegraph&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p style=&quot;text-align:justify&quot;&gt;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 &amp;lsquo;modern&amp;rsquo; 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.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p style=&quot;text-align:justify&quot;&gt;Embankments are lifelines. The Sunderbans&amp;rsquo; villages &amp;mdash; &amp;lsquo;abad&amp;rsquo; cleared for human settlement &amp;mdash; 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.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p style=&quot;text-align:justify&quot;&gt;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.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p style=&quot;text-align:justify&quot;&gt;Please &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.telegraphindia.com/amp/opinion/is-concrete-the-way-forward-in-rebuilding-the-sunderbans/cid/1784882?__twitter_impression=true&quot; title=&quot;https://www.telegraphindia.com/amp/opinion/is-concrete-the-way-forward-in-rebuilding-the-sunderbans/cid/1784882?__twitter_impression=true&quot;&gt;click here&lt;/a&gt; to read more.&lt;/p&gt;&#039;,
	&#039;lang&#039; =&gt; &#039;English&#039;,
	&#039;SITE_URL&#039; =&gt; &#039;https://im4change.in/&#039;,
	&#039;site_title&#039; =&gt; &#039;im4change&#039;,
	&#039;adminprix&#039; =&gt; &#039;admin&#039;
]
$article_current = object(App\Model\Entity\Article) {

	&#039;id&#039; =&gt; (int) 56278,
	&#039;title&#039; =&gt; &#039;Is concrete the way forward in rebuilding the Sunderbans? -Megnaa Mehtta &amp; Debjani Bhattacharyya&#039;,
	&#039;subheading&#039; =&gt; null,
	&#039;description&#039; =&gt; &#039;&lt;p style=&quot;text-align:justify&quot;&gt;-The Telegraph&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p style=&quot;text-align:justify&quot;&gt;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 &amp;lsquo;modern&amp;rsquo; 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.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p style=&quot;text-align:justify&quot;&gt;Embankments are lifelines. The Sunderbans&amp;rsquo; villages &amp;mdash; &amp;lsquo;abad&amp;rsquo; cleared for human settlement &amp;mdash; 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.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p style=&quot;text-align:justify&quot;&gt;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.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p style=&quot;text-align:justify&quot;&gt;Please &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.telegraphindia.com/amp/opinion/is-concrete-the-way-forward-in-rebuilding-the-sunderbans/cid/1784882?__twitter_impression=true&quot;&gt;click here&lt;/a&gt; to read more.&lt;/p&gt;
&#039;,
	&#039;credit_writer&#039; =&gt; &#039;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&#039;,
	&#039;article_img&#039; =&gt; &#039;&#039;,
	&#039;article_img_thumb&#039; =&gt; &#039;&#039;,
	&#039;status&#039; =&gt; (int) 1,
	&#039;show_on_home&#039; =&gt; (int) 1,
	&#039;lang&#039; =&gt; &#039;EN&#039;,
	&#039;category_id&#039; =&gt; (int) 16,
	&#039;tag_keyword&#039; =&gt; &#039;&#039;,
	&#039;seo_url&#039; =&gt; &#039;concrete-and-cinder-block-embankments-sometimes-they-do-more-harm-than-good&#039;,
	&#039;meta_title&#039; =&gt; &#039;&#039;,
	&#039;meta_keywords&#039; =&gt; &#039;&#039;,
	&#039;meta_description&#039; =&gt; &#039;&#039;,
	&#039;noindex&#039; =&gt; (int) 1,
	&#039;publish_date&#039; =&gt; object(Cake\I18n\FrozenDate) {},
	&#039;most_visit_section_id&#039; =&gt; null,
	&#039;article_big_img&#039; =&gt; null,
	&#039;liveid&#039; =&gt; null,
	&#039;created&#039; =&gt; object(Cake\I18n\FrozenTime) {},
	&#039;modified&#039; =&gt; object(Cake\I18n\FrozenTime) {},
	&#039;edate&#039; =&gt; &#039;&#039;,
	&#039;tags&#039; =&gt; [
		(int) 0 =&gt; object(Cake\ORM\Entity) {},
		(int) 1 =&gt; object(Cake\ORM\Entity) {},
		(int) 2 =&gt; object(Cake\ORM\Entity) {},
		(int) 3 =&gt; object(Cake\ORM\Entity) {}
	],
	&#039;category&#039; =&gt; object(App\Model\Entity\Category) {},
	&#039;[new]&#039; =&gt; false,
	&#039;[accessible]&#039; =&gt; [
		&#039;*&#039; =&gt; true,
		&#039;id&#039; =&gt; false
	],
	&#039;[dirty]&#039; =&gt; [],
	&#039;[original]&#039; =&gt; [],
	&#039;[virtual]&#039; =&gt; [],
	&#039;[hasErrors]&#039; =&gt; false,
	&#039;[errors]&#039; =&gt; [],
	&#039;[invalid]&#039; =&gt; [],
	&#039;[repository]&#039; =&gt; &#039;Articles&#039;

}
$articleid = (int) 56278
$metaTitle = &#039;LATEST NEWS UPDATES | Is concrete the way forward in rebuilding the Sunderbans? -Megnaa Mehtta &amp; Debjani Bhattacharyya&#039;
$metaKeywords = &#039;Cyclone Amphan,Concrete Embankments,Cinder Block Concrete Embankments,Sunderbans&#039;
$metaDesc = &#039;-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...&#039;
$disp = &#039;&lt;p style=&quot;text-align:justify&quot;&gt;-The Telegraph&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p style=&quot;text-align:justify&quot;&gt;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 &amp;lsquo;modern&amp;rsquo; 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.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p style=&quot;text-align:justify&quot;&gt;Embankments are lifelines. The Sunderbans&amp;rsquo; villages &amp;mdash; &amp;lsquo;abad&amp;rsquo; cleared for human settlement &amp;mdash; 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.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p style=&quot;text-align:justify&quot;&gt;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.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p style=&quot;text-align:justify&quot;&gt;Please &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.telegraphindia.com/amp/opinion/is-concrete-the-way-forward-in-rebuilding-the-sunderbans/cid/1784882?__twitter_impression=true&quot; title=&quot;https://www.telegraphindia.com/amp/opinion/is-concrete-the-way-forward-in-rebuilding-the-sunderbans/cid/1784882?__twitter_impression=true&quot;&gt;click here&lt;/a&gt; to read more.&lt;/p&gt;&#039;
$lang = &#039;English&#039;
$SITE_URL = &#039;https://im4change.in/&#039;
$site_title = &#039;im4change&#039;
$adminprix = &#039;admin&#039;</pre><pre class="stack-trace">include - APP/Template/Layout/printlayout.ctp, line 8
Cake\View\View::_evaluate() - CORE/src/View/View.php, line 1413
Cake\View\View::_render() - CORE/src/View/View.php, line 1374
Cake\View\View::renderLayout() - CORE/src/View/View.php, line 927
Cake\View\View::render() - CORE/src/View/View.php, line 885
Cake\Controller\Controller::render() - CORE/src/Controller/Controller.php, line 791
Cake\Http\ActionDispatcher::_invoke() - CORE/src/Http/ActionDispatcher.php, line 126
Cake\Http\ActionDispatcher::dispatch() - CORE/src/Http/ActionDispatcher.php, line 94
Cake\Http\BaseApplication::__invoke() - CORE/src/Http/BaseApplication.php, line 235
Cake\Http\Runner::__invoke() - CORE/src/Http/Runner.php, line 65
Cake\Routing\Middleware\RoutingMiddleware::__invoke() - CORE/src/Routing/Middleware/RoutingMiddleware.php, line 162
Cake\Http\Runner::__invoke() - CORE/src/Http/Runner.php, line 65
Cake\Routing\Middleware\AssetMiddleware::__invoke() - CORE/src/Routing/Middleware/AssetMiddleware.php, line 88
Cake\Http\Runner::__invoke() - CORE/src/Http/Runner.php, line 65
Cake\Error\Middleware\ErrorHandlerMiddleware::__invoke() - CORE/src/Error/Middleware/ErrorHandlerMiddleware.php, line 96
Cake\Http\Runner::__invoke() - CORE/src/Http/Runner.php, line 65
Cake\Http\Runner::run() - CORE/src/Http/Runner.php, line 51</pre></div></pre>latest-news-updates/concrete-and-cinder-block-embankments-sometimes-they-do-more-harm-than-good.html"/>
    <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"/>
    <link href="https://im4change.in/css/control.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css"
          media="all"/>
    <title>LATEST NEWS UPDATES | Is concrete the way forward in rebuilding the Sunderbans? -Megnaa Mehtta & Debjani Bhattacharyya | Im4change.org</title>
    <meta name="description" content="-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..."/>
    <script src="https://im4change.in/js/jquery-1.10.2.js"></script>
    <script type="text/javascript" src="https://im4change.in/js/jquery-migrate.min.js"></script>
    <script language="javascript" type="text/javascript">

        $(document).ready(function () {
            var img = $("img")[0]; // Get my img elem
            var pic_real_width, pic_real_height;
            $("<img/>") // Make in memory copy of image to avoid css issues
                .attr("src", $(img).attr("src"))
                .load(function () {
                    pic_real_width = this.width;   // Note: $(this).width() will not
                    pic_real_height = this.height; // work for in memory images.
                });
        });
    </script>
    <style type="text/css">
        @media screen {
            div.divFooter {
                display: block;
            }
        }

        @media print {
            .printbutton {
                display: none !important;
            }
        }
    </style>
</head>
<body>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" border="0" width="98%" align="center">
    <tr>
        <td class="top_bg">
            <div class="divFooter">
                <img src="https://im4change.in/images/logo1.jpg" height="59" border="0"
                     alt="Resource centre on India's rural distress" style="padding-top:14px;"/>
            </div>

        </td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
        <td id="topspace">&nbsp;</td>
    </tr>

    <tr id="topspace">
        <td>&nbsp;</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
        <td height="50" style="border-bottom:1px solid #000; padding-top:10px;" class="printbutton">
            <form><input type="button" value=" Print this page "
                         onclick="window.print();return false;"/></form>
        </td>
    </tr>

    <tr>
        <td width="100%">
            <h1 class="news_headlines" style="font-style:normal">
                <strong>Is concrete the way forward in rebuilding the Sunderbans? -Megnaa Mehtta & Debjani Bhattacharyya</strong></h1>
        </td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
        <td width="100%" style="font-family:Arial, 'Segoe Script', 'Segoe UI', sans-serif, serif"><font size="3">
                <p style="text-align:justify">-The Telegraph</p><p style="text-align:justify">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 &lsquo;modern&rsquo; 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.</p><p style="text-align:justify">Embankments are lifelines. The Sunderbans&rsquo; villages &mdash; &lsquo;abad&rsquo; cleared for human settlement &mdash; 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.</p><p style="text-align:justify">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.</p><p style="text-align:justify">Please <a href="https://www.telegraphindia.com/amp/opinion/is-concrete-the-way-forward-in-rebuilding-the-sunderbans/cid/1784882?__twitter_impression=true" title="https://www.telegraphindia.com/amp/opinion/is-concrete-the-way-forward-in-rebuilding-the-sunderbans/cid/1784882?__twitter_impression=true">click here</a> to read more.</p>               </font>
        </td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
        <td>&nbsp;</td>
    </tr>

    <tr>
        <td height="50" style="border-top:1px solid #000; border-bottom:1px solid #000;padding-top:10px;">
            <form><input type="button" value=" Print this page "
                         onclick="window.print();return false;"/></form>
        </td>
    </tr>
</table></body>
</html>'

}
$maxBufferLength = (int) 8192
$file = '/home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Error/Debugger.php'
$line = (int) 853
$message = 'Unable to emit headers. Headers sent in file=/home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Error/Debugger.php line=853'
Cake\Http\ResponseEmitter::emit() - CORE/src/Http/ResponseEmitter.php, line 48
Cake\Http\Server::emit() - CORE/src/Http/Server.php, line 141
[main] - ROOT/webroot/index.php, line 39

Warning (2): Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at /home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Error/Debugger.php:853) [CORE/src/Http/ResponseEmitter.php, line 148]
Code Context
            $response->getStatusCode(),

            ($reasonPhrase ? ' ' . $reasonPhrase : '')

        ));
$response = object(Cake\Http\Response) {

	'status' => (int) 200,
	'contentType' => 'text/html',
	'headers' => [
		'Content-Type' => [
			[maximum depth reached]
		]
	],
	'file' => null,
	'fileRange' => [],
	'cookies' => object(Cake\Http\Cookie\CookieCollection) {},
	'cacheDirectives' => [],
	'body' => '<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN"
        "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
<head>
    <link rel="canonical" href="https://im4change.in/<pre class="cake-error"><a href="javascript:void(0);" onclick="document.getElementById('cakeErr67f0cb5ff1778-trace').style.display = (document.getElementById('cakeErr67f0cb5ff1778-trace').style.display == 'none' ? '' : 'none');"><b>Notice</b> (8)</a>: Undefined variable: urlPrefix [<b>APP/Template/Layout/printlayout.ctp</b>, line <b>8</b>]<div id="cakeErr67f0cb5ff1778-trace" class="cake-stack-trace" style="display: none;"><a href="javascript:void(0);" onclick="document.getElementById('cakeErr67f0cb5ff1778-code').style.display = (document.getElementById('cakeErr67f0cb5ff1778-code').style.display == 'none' ? '' : 'none')">Code</a> <a href="javascript:void(0);" onclick="document.getElementById('cakeErr67f0cb5ff1778-context').style.display = (document.getElementById('cakeErr67f0cb5ff1778-context').style.display == 'none' ? '' : 'none')">Context</a><pre id="cakeErr67f0cb5ff1778-code" class="cake-code-dump" style="display: none;"><code><span style="color: #000000"><span style="color: #0000BB"></span><span style="color: #007700">&lt;</span><span style="color: #0000BB">head</span><span style="color: #007700">&gt;
</span></span></code>
<span class="code-highlight"><code><span style="color: #000000">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&lt;link&nbsp;rel="canonical"&nbsp;href="<span style="color: #0000BB">&lt;?php&nbsp;</span><span style="color: #007700">echo&nbsp;</span><span style="color: #0000BB">Configure</span><span style="color: #007700">::</span><span style="color: #0000BB">read</span><span style="color: #007700">(</span><span style="color: #DD0000">'SITE_URL'</span><span style="color: #007700">);&nbsp;</span><span style="color: #0000BB">?&gt;&lt;?php&nbsp;</span><span style="color: #007700">echo&nbsp;</span><span style="color: #0000BB">$urlPrefix</span><span style="color: #007700">;</span><span style="color: #0000BB">?&gt;&lt;?php&nbsp;</span><span style="color: #007700">echo&nbsp;</span><span style="color: #0000BB">$article_current</span><span style="color: #007700">-&gt;</span><span style="color: #0000BB">category</span><span style="color: #007700">-&gt;</span><span style="color: #0000BB">slug</span><span style="color: #007700">;&nbsp;</span><span style="color: #0000BB">?&gt;</span>/<span style="color: #0000BB">&lt;?php&nbsp;</span><span style="color: #007700">echo&nbsp;</span><span style="color: #0000BB">$article_current</span><span style="color: #007700">-&gt;</span><span style="color: #0000BB">seo_url</span><span style="color: #007700">;&nbsp;</span><span style="color: #0000BB">?&gt;</span>.html"/&gt;
</span></code></span>
<code><span style="color: #000000"><span style="color: #0000BB">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</span><span style="color: #007700">&lt;</span><span style="color: #0000BB">meta&nbsp;http</span><span style="color: #007700">-</span><span style="color: #0000BB">equiv</span><span style="color: #007700">=</span><span style="color: #DD0000">"Content-Type"&nbsp;</span><span style="color: #0000BB">content</span><span style="color: #007700">=</span><span style="color: #DD0000">"text/html;&nbsp;charset=utf-8"</span><span style="color: #007700">/&gt;
</span></span></code></pre><pre id="cakeErr67f0cb5ff1778-context" class="cake-context" style="display: none;">$viewFile = &#039;/home/brlfuser/public_html/src/Template/Layout/printlayout.ctp&#039;
$dataForView = [
	&#039;article_current&#039; =&gt; object(App\Model\Entity\Article) {

		&#039;id&#039; =&gt; (int) 56278,
		&#039;title&#039; =&gt; &#039;Is concrete the way forward in rebuilding the Sunderbans? -Megnaa Mehtta &amp; Debjani Bhattacharyya&#039;,
		&#039;subheading&#039; =&gt; null,
		&#039;description&#039; =&gt; &#039;&lt;p style=&quot;text-align:justify&quot;&gt;-The Telegraph&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p style=&quot;text-align:justify&quot;&gt;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 &amp;lsquo;modern&amp;rsquo; 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.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p style=&quot;text-align:justify&quot;&gt;Embankments are lifelines. The Sunderbans&amp;rsquo; villages &amp;mdash; &amp;lsquo;abad&amp;rsquo; cleared for human settlement &amp;mdash; 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.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p style=&quot;text-align:justify&quot;&gt;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.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p style=&quot;text-align:justify&quot;&gt;Please &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.telegraphindia.com/amp/opinion/is-concrete-the-way-forward-in-rebuilding-the-sunderbans/cid/1784882?__twitter_impression=true&quot;&gt;click here&lt;/a&gt; to read more.&lt;/p&gt;
&#039;,
		&#039;credit_writer&#039; =&gt; &#039;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&#039;,
		&#039;article_img&#039; =&gt; &#039;&#039;,
		&#039;article_img_thumb&#039; =&gt; &#039;&#039;,
		&#039;status&#039; =&gt; (int) 1,
		&#039;show_on_home&#039; =&gt; (int) 1,
		&#039;lang&#039; =&gt; &#039;EN&#039;,
		&#039;category_id&#039; =&gt; (int) 16,
		&#039;tag_keyword&#039; =&gt; &#039;&#039;,
		&#039;seo_url&#039; =&gt; &#039;concrete-and-cinder-block-embankments-sometimes-they-do-more-harm-than-good&#039;,
		&#039;meta_title&#039; =&gt; &#039;&#039;,
		&#039;meta_keywords&#039; =&gt; &#039;&#039;,
		&#039;meta_description&#039; =&gt; &#039;&#039;,
		&#039;noindex&#039; =&gt; (int) 1,
		&#039;publish_date&#039; =&gt; object(Cake\I18n\FrozenDate) {},
		&#039;most_visit_section_id&#039; =&gt; null,
		&#039;article_big_img&#039; =&gt; null,
		&#039;liveid&#039; =&gt; null,
		&#039;created&#039; =&gt; object(Cake\I18n\FrozenTime) {},
		&#039;modified&#039; =&gt; object(Cake\I18n\FrozenTime) {},
		&#039;edate&#039; =&gt; &#039;&#039;,
		&#039;tags&#039; =&gt; [
			[maximum depth reached]
		],
		&#039;category&#039; =&gt; object(App\Model\Entity\Category) {},
		&#039;[new]&#039; =&gt; false,
		&#039;[accessible]&#039; =&gt; [
			[maximum depth reached]
		],
		&#039;[dirty]&#039; =&gt; [[maximum depth reached]],
		&#039;[original]&#039; =&gt; [[maximum depth reached]],
		&#039;[virtual]&#039; =&gt; [[maximum depth reached]],
		&#039;[hasErrors]&#039; =&gt; false,
		&#039;[errors]&#039; =&gt; [[maximum depth reached]],
		&#039;[invalid]&#039; =&gt; [[maximum depth reached]],
		&#039;[repository]&#039; =&gt; &#039;Articles&#039;
	
	},
	&#039;articleid&#039; =&gt; (int) 56278,
	&#039;metaTitle&#039; =&gt; &#039;LATEST NEWS UPDATES | Is concrete the way forward in rebuilding the Sunderbans? -Megnaa Mehtta &amp; Debjani Bhattacharyya&#039;,
	&#039;metaKeywords&#039; =&gt; &#039;Cyclone Amphan,Concrete Embankments,Cinder Block Concrete Embankments,Sunderbans&#039;,
	&#039;metaDesc&#039; =&gt; &#039;-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...&#039;,
	&#039;disp&#039; =&gt; &#039;&lt;p style=&quot;text-align:justify&quot;&gt;-The Telegraph&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p style=&quot;text-align:justify&quot;&gt;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 &amp;lsquo;modern&amp;rsquo; 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.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p style=&quot;text-align:justify&quot;&gt;Embankments are lifelines. The Sunderbans&amp;rsquo; villages &amp;mdash; &amp;lsquo;abad&amp;rsquo; cleared for human settlement &amp;mdash; 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.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p style=&quot;text-align:justify&quot;&gt;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.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p style=&quot;text-align:justify&quot;&gt;Please &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.telegraphindia.com/amp/opinion/is-concrete-the-way-forward-in-rebuilding-the-sunderbans/cid/1784882?__twitter_impression=true&quot; title=&quot;https://www.telegraphindia.com/amp/opinion/is-concrete-the-way-forward-in-rebuilding-the-sunderbans/cid/1784882?__twitter_impression=true&quot;&gt;click here&lt;/a&gt; to read more.&lt;/p&gt;&#039;,
	&#039;lang&#039; =&gt; &#039;English&#039;,
	&#039;SITE_URL&#039; =&gt; &#039;https://im4change.in/&#039;,
	&#039;site_title&#039; =&gt; &#039;im4change&#039;,
	&#039;adminprix&#039; =&gt; &#039;admin&#039;
]
$article_current = object(App\Model\Entity\Article) {

	&#039;id&#039; =&gt; (int) 56278,
	&#039;title&#039; =&gt; &#039;Is concrete the way forward in rebuilding the Sunderbans? -Megnaa Mehtta &amp; Debjani Bhattacharyya&#039;,
	&#039;subheading&#039; =&gt; null,
	&#039;description&#039; =&gt; &#039;&lt;p style=&quot;text-align:justify&quot;&gt;-The Telegraph&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p style=&quot;text-align:justify&quot;&gt;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 &amp;lsquo;modern&amp;rsquo; 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.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p style=&quot;text-align:justify&quot;&gt;Embankments are lifelines. The Sunderbans&amp;rsquo; villages &amp;mdash; &amp;lsquo;abad&amp;rsquo; cleared for human settlement &amp;mdash; 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.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p style=&quot;text-align:justify&quot;&gt;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.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p style=&quot;text-align:justify&quot;&gt;Please &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.telegraphindia.com/amp/opinion/is-concrete-the-way-forward-in-rebuilding-the-sunderbans/cid/1784882?__twitter_impression=true&quot;&gt;click here&lt;/a&gt; to read more.&lt;/p&gt;
&#039;,
	&#039;credit_writer&#039; =&gt; &#039;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&#039;,
	&#039;article_img&#039; =&gt; &#039;&#039;,
	&#039;article_img_thumb&#039; =&gt; &#039;&#039;,
	&#039;status&#039; =&gt; (int) 1,
	&#039;show_on_home&#039; =&gt; (int) 1,
	&#039;lang&#039; =&gt; &#039;EN&#039;,
	&#039;category_id&#039; =&gt; (int) 16,
	&#039;tag_keyword&#039; =&gt; &#039;&#039;,
	&#039;seo_url&#039; =&gt; &#039;concrete-and-cinder-block-embankments-sometimes-they-do-more-harm-than-good&#039;,
	&#039;meta_title&#039; =&gt; &#039;&#039;,
	&#039;meta_keywords&#039; =&gt; &#039;&#039;,
	&#039;meta_description&#039; =&gt; &#039;&#039;,
	&#039;noindex&#039; =&gt; (int) 1,
	&#039;publish_date&#039; =&gt; object(Cake\I18n\FrozenDate) {},
	&#039;most_visit_section_id&#039; =&gt; null,
	&#039;article_big_img&#039; =&gt; null,
	&#039;liveid&#039; =&gt; null,
	&#039;created&#039; =&gt; object(Cake\I18n\FrozenTime) {},
	&#039;modified&#039; =&gt; object(Cake\I18n\FrozenTime) {},
	&#039;edate&#039; =&gt; &#039;&#039;,
	&#039;tags&#039; =&gt; [
		(int) 0 =&gt; object(Cake\ORM\Entity) {},
		(int) 1 =&gt; object(Cake\ORM\Entity) {},
		(int) 2 =&gt; object(Cake\ORM\Entity) {},
		(int) 3 =&gt; object(Cake\ORM\Entity) {}
	],
	&#039;category&#039; =&gt; object(App\Model\Entity\Category) {},
	&#039;[new]&#039; =&gt; false,
	&#039;[accessible]&#039; =&gt; [
		&#039;*&#039; =&gt; true,
		&#039;id&#039; =&gt; false
	],
	&#039;[dirty]&#039; =&gt; [],
	&#039;[original]&#039; =&gt; [],
	&#039;[virtual]&#039; =&gt; [],
	&#039;[hasErrors]&#039; =&gt; false,
	&#039;[errors]&#039; =&gt; [],
	&#039;[invalid]&#039; =&gt; [],
	&#039;[repository]&#039; =&gt; &#039;Articles&#039;

}
$articleid = (int) 56278
$metaTitle = &#039;LATEST NEWS UPDATES | Is concrete the way forward in rebuilding the Sunderbans? -Megnaa Mehtta &amp; Debjani Bhattacharyya&#039;
$metaKeywords = &#039;Cyclone Amphan,Concrete Embankments,Cinder Block Concrete Embankments,Sunderbans&#039;
$metaDesc = &#039;-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...&#039;
$disp = &#039;&lt;p style=&quot;text-align:justify&quot;&gt;-The Telegraph&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p style=&quot;text-align:justify&quot;&gt;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 &amp;lsquo;modern&amp;rsquo; 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.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p style=&quot;text-align:justify&quot;&gt;Embankments are lifelines. The Sunderbans&amp;rsquo; villages &amp;mdash; &amp;lsquo;abad&amp;rsquo; cleared for human settlement &amp;mdash; 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.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p style=&quot;text-align:justify&quot;&gt;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.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p style=&quot;text-align:justify&quot;&gt;Please &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.telegraphindia.com/amp/opinion/is-concrete-the-way-forward-in-rebuilding-the-sunderbans/cid/1784882?__twitter_impression=true&quot; title=&quot;https://www.telegraphindia.com/amp/opinion/is-concrete-the-way-forward-in-rebuilding-the-sunderbans/cid/1784882?__twitter_impression=true&quot;&gt;click here&lt;/a&gt; to read more.&lt;/p&gt;&#039;
$lang = &#039;English&#039;
$SITE_URL = &#039;https://im4change.in/&#039;
$site_title = &#039;im4change&#039;
$adminprix = &#039;admin&#039;</pre><pre class="stack-trace">include - APP/Template/Layout/printlayout.ctp, line 8
Cake\View\View::_evaluate() - CORE/src/View/View.php, line 1413
Cake\View\View::_render() - CORE/src/View/View.php, line 1374
Cake\View\View::renderLayout() - CORE/src/View/View.php, line 927
Cake\View\View::render() - CORE/src/View/View.php, line 885
Cake\Controller\Controller::render() - CORE/src/Controller/Controller.php, line 791
Cake\Http\ActionDispatcher::_invoke() - CORE/src/Http/ActionDispatcher.php, line 126
Cake\Http\ActionDispatcher::dispatch() - CORE/src/Http/ActionDispatcher.php, line 94
Cake\Http\BaseApplication::__invoke() - CORE/src/Http/BaseApplication.php, line 235
Cake\Http\Runner::__invoke() - CORE/src/Http/Runner.php, line 65
Cake\Routing\Middleware\RoutingMiddleware::__invoke() - CORE/src/Routing/Middleware/RoutingMiddleware.php, line 162
Cake\Http\Runner::__invoke() - CORE/src/Http/Runner.php, line 65
Cake\Routing\Middleware\AssetMiddleware::__invoke() - CORE/src/Routing/Middleware/AssetMiddleware.php, line 88
Cake\Http\Runner::__invoke() - CORE/src/Http/Runner.php, line 65
Cake\Error\Middleware\ErrorHandlerMiddleware::__invoke() - CORE/src/Error/Middleware/ErrorHandlerMiddleware.php, line 96
Cake\Http\Runner::__invoke() - CORE/src/Http/Runner.php, line 65
Cake\Http\Runner::run() - CORE/src/Http/Runner.php, line 51</pre></div></pre>latest-news-updates/concrete-and-cinder-block-embankments-sometimes-they-do-more-harm-than-good.html"/>
    <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"/>
    <link href="https://im4change.in/css/control.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css"
          media="all"/>
    <title>LATEST NEWS UPDATES | Is concrete the way forward in rebuilding the Sunderbans? -Megnaa Mehtta & Debjani Bhattacharyya | Im4change.org</title>
    <meta name="description" content="-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..."/>
    <script src="https://im4change.in/js/jquery-1.10.2.js"></script>
    <script type="text/javascript" src="https://im4change.in/js/jquery-migrate.min.js"></script>
    <script language="javascript" type="text/javascript">

        $(document).ready(function () {
            var img = $("img")[0]; // Get my img elem
            var pic_real_width, pic_real_height;
            $("<img/>") // Make in memory copy of image to avoid css issues
                .attr("src", $(img).attr("src"))
                .load(function () {
                    pic_real_width = this.width;   // Note: $(this).width() will not
                    pic_real_height = this.height; // work for in memory images.
                });
        });
    </script>
    <style type="text/css">
        @media screen {
            div.divFooter {
                display: block;
            }
        }

        @media print {
            .printbutton {
                display: none !important;
            }
        }
    </style>
</head>
<body>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" border="0" width="98%" align="center">
    <tr>
        <td class="top_bg">
            <div class="divFooter">
                <img src="https://im4change.in/images/logo1.jpg" height="59" border="0"
                     alt="Resource centre on India's rural distress" style="padding-top:14px;"/>
            </div>

        </td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
        <td id="topspace">&nbsp;</td>
    </tr>

    <tr id="topspace">
        <td>&nbsp;</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
        <td height="50" style="border-bottom:1px solid #000; padding-top:10px;" class="printbutton">
            <form><input type="button" value=" Print this page "
                         onclick="window.print();return false;"/></form>
        </td>
    </tr>

    <tr>
        <td width="100%">
            <h1 class="news_headlines" style="font-style:normal">
                <strong>Is concrete the way forward in rebuilding the Sunderbans? -Megnaa Mehtta & Debjani Bhattacharyya</strong></h1>
        </td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
        <td width="100%" style="font-family:Arial, 'Segoe Script', 'Segoe UI', sans-serif, serif"><font size="3">
                <p style="text-align:justify">-The Telegraph</p><p style="text-align:justify">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 &lsquo;modern&rsquo; 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.</p><p style="text-align:justify">Embankments are lifelines. The Sunderbans&rsquo; villages &mdash; &lsquo;abad&rsquo; cleared for human settlement &mdash; 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.</p><p style="text-align:justify">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.</p><p style="text-align:justify">Please <a href="https://www.telegraphindia.com/amp/opinion/is-concrete-the-way-forward-in-rebuilding-the-sunderbans/cid/1784882?__twitter_impression=true" title="https://www.telegraphindia.com/amp/opinion/is-concrete-the-way-forward-in-rebuilding-the-sunderbans/cid/1784882?__twitter_impression=true">click here</a> to read more.</p>               </font>
        </td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
        <td>&nbsp;</td>
    </tr>

    <tr>
        <td height="50" style="border-top:1px solid #000; border-bottom:1px solid #000;padding-top:10px;">
            <form><input type="button" value=" Print this page "
                         onclick="window.print();return false;"/></form>
        </td>
    </tr>
</table></body>
</html>'

}
$reasonPhrase = 'OK'
header - [internal], line ??
Cake\Http\ResponseEmitter::emitStatusLine() - CORE/src/Http/ResponseEmitter.php, line 148
Cake\Http\ResponseEmitter::emit() - CORE/src/Http/ResponseEmitter.php, line 54
Cake\Http\Server::emit() - CORE/src/Http/Server.php, line 141
[main] - ROOT/webroot/index.php, line 39

Warning (2): Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at /home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Error/Debugger.php:853) [CORE/src/Http/ResponseEmitter.php, line 181]
Code Context
                    $value

                ), $first);

                $first = false;
$response = object(Cake\Http\Response) {

	'status' => (int) 200,
	'contentType' => 'text/html',
	'headers' => [
		'Content-Type' => [
			[maximum depth reached]
		]
	],
	'file' => null,
	'fileRange' => [],
	'cookies' => object(Cake\Http\Cookie\CookieCollection) {},
	'cacheDirectives' => [],
	'body' => '<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN"
        "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
<head>
    <link rel="canonical" href="https://im4change.in/<pre class="cake-error"><a href="javascript:void(0);" onclick="document.getElementById('cakeErr67f0cb5ff1778-trace').style.display = (document.getElementById('cakeErr67f0cb5ff1778-trace').style.display == 'none' ? '' : 'none');"><b>Notice</b> (8)</a>: Undefined variable: urlPrefix [<b>APP/Template/Layout/printlayout.ctp</b>, line <b>8</b>]<div id="cakeErr67f0cb5ff1778-trace" class="cake-stack-trace" style="display: none;"><a href="javascript:void(0);" onclick="document.getElementById('cakeErr67f0cb5ff1778-code').style.display = (document.getElementById('cakeErr67f0cb5ff1778-code').style.display == 'none' ? '' : 'none')">Code</a> <a href="javascript:void(0);" onclick="document.getElementById('cakeErr67f0cb5ff1778-context').style.display = (document.getElementById('cakeErr67f0cb5ff1778-context').style.display == 'none' ? '' : 'none')">Context</a><pre id="cakeErr67f0cb5ff1778-code" class="cake-code-dump" style="display: none;"><code><span style="color: #000000"><span style="color: #0000BB"></span><span style="color: #007700">&lt;</span><span style="color: #0000BB">head</span><span style="color: #007700">&gt;
</span></span></code>
<span class="code-highlight"><code><span style="color: #000000">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&lt;link&nbsp;rel="canonical"&nbsp;href="<span style="color: #0000BB">&lt;?php&nbsp;</span><span style="color: #007700">echo&nbsp;</span><span style="color: #0000BB">Configure</span><span style="color: #007700">::</span><span style="color: #0000BB">read</span><span style="color: #007700">(</span><span style="color: #DD0000">'SITE_URL'</span><span style="color: #007700">);&nbsp;</span><span style="color: #0000BB">?&gt;&lt;?php&nbsp;</span><span style="color: #007700">echo&nbsp;</span><span style="color: #0000BB">$urlPrefix</span><span style="color: #007700">;</span><span style="color: #0000BB">?&gt;&lt;?php&nbsp;</span><span style="color: #007700">echo&nbsp;</span><span style="color: #0000BB">$article_current</span><span style="color: #007700">-&gt;</span><span style="color: #0000BB">category</span><span style="color: #007700">-&gt;</span><span style="color: #0000BB">slug</span><span style="color: #007700">;&nbsp;</span><span style="color: #0000BB">?&gt;</span>/<span style="color: #0000BB">&lt;?php&nbsp;</span><span style="color: #007700">echo&nbsp;</span><span style="color: #0000BB">$article_current</span><span style="color: #007700">-&gt;</span><span style="color: #0000BB">seo_url</span><span style="color: #007700">;&nbsp;</span><span style="color: #0000BB">?&gt;</span>.html"/&gt;
</span></code></span>
<code><span style="color: #000000"><span style="color: #0000BB">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</span><span style="color: #007700">&lt;</span><span style="color: #0000BB">meta&nbsp;http</span><span style="color: #007700">-</span><span style="color: #0000BB">equiv</span><span style="color: #007700">=</span><span style="color: #DD0000">"Content-Type"&nbsp;</span><span style="color: #0000BB">content</span><span style="color: #007700">=</span><span style="color: #DD0000">"text/html;&nbsp;charset=utf-8"</span><span style="color: #007700">/&gt;
</span></span></code></pre><pre id="cakeErr67f0cb5ff1778-context" class="cake-context" style="display: none;">$viewFile = &#039;/home/brlfuser/public_html/src/Template/Layout/printlayout.ctp&#039;
$dataForView = [
	&#039;article_current&#039; =&gt; object(App\Model\Entity\Article) {

		&#039;id&#039; =&gt; (int) 56278,
		&#039;title&#039; =&gt; &#039;Is concrete the way forward in rebuilding the Sunderbans? -Megnaa Mehtta &amp; Debjani Bhattacharyya&#039;,
		&#039;subheading&#039; =&gt; null,
		&#039;description&#039; =&gt; &#039;&lt;p style=&quot;text-align:justify&quot;&gt;-The Telegraph&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p style=&quot;text-align:justify&quot;&gt;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 &amp;lsquo;modern&amp;rsquo; 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.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p style=&quot;text-align:justify&quot;&gt;Embankments are lifelines. The Sunderbans&amp;rsquo; villages &amp;mdash; &amp;lsquo;abad&amp;rsquo; cleared for human settlement &amp;mdash; 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.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p style=&quot;text-align:justify&quot;&gt;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.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p style=&quot;text-align:justify&quot;&gt;Please &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.telegraphindia.com/amp/opinion/is-concrete-the-way-forward-in-rebuilding-the-sunderbans/cid/1784882?__twitter_impression=true&quot;&gt;click here&lt;/a&gt; to read more.&lt;/p&gt;
&#039;,
		&#039;credit_writer&#039; =&gt; &#039;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&#039;,
		&#039;article_img&#039; =&gt; &#039;&#039;,
		&#039;article_img_thumb&#039; =&gt; &#039;&#039;,
		&#039;status&#039; =&gt; (int) 1,
		&#039;show_on_home&#039; =&gt; (int) 1,
		&#039;lang&#039; =&gt; &#039;EN&#039;,
		&#039;category_id&#039; =&gt; (int) 16,
		&#039;tag_keyword&#039; =&gt; &#039;&#039;,
		&#039;seo_url&#039; =&gt; &#039;concrete-and-cinder-block-embankments-sometimes-they-do-more-harm-than-good&#039;,
		&#039;meta_title&#039; =&gt; &#039;&#039;,
		&#039;meta_keywords&#039; =&gt; &#039;&#039;,
		&#039;meta_description&#039; =&gt; &#039;&#039;,
		&#039;noindex&#039; =&gt; (int) 1,
		&#039;publish_date&#039; =&gt; object(Cake\I18n\FrozenDate) {},
		&#039;most_visit_section_id&#039; =&gt; null,
		&#039;article_big_img&#039; =&gt; null,
		&#039;liveid&#039; =&gt; null,
		&#039;created&#039; =&gt; object(Cake\I18n\FrozenTime) {},
		&#039;modified&#039; =&gt; object(Cake\I18n\FrozenTime) {},
		&#039;edate&#039; =&gt; &#039;&#039;,
		&#039;tags&#039; =&gt; [
			[maximum depth reached]
		],
		&#039;category&#039; =&gt; object(App\Model\Entity\Category) {},
		&#039;[new]&#039; =&gt; false,
		&#039;[accessible]&#039; =&gt; [
			[maximum depth reached]
		],
		&#039;[dirty]&#039; =&gt; [[maximum depth reached]],
		&#039;[original]&#039; =&gt; [[maximum depth reached]],
		&#039;[virtual]&#039; =&gt; [[maximum depth reached]],
		&#039;[hasErrors]&#039; =&gt; false,
		&#039;[errors]&#039; =&gt; [[maximum depth reached]],
		&#039;[invalid]&#039; =&gt; [[maximum depth reached]],
		&#039;[repository]&#039; =&gt; &#039;Articles&#039;
	
	},
	&#039;articleid&#039; =&gt; (int) 56278,
	&#039;metaTitle&#039; =&gt; &#039;LATEST NEWS UPDATES | Is concrete the way forward in rebuilding the Sunderbans? -Megnaa Mehtta &amp; Debjani Bhattacharyya&#039;,
	&#039;metaKeywords&#039; =&gt; &#039;Cyclone Amphan,Concrete Embankments,Cinder Block Concrete Embankments,Sunderbans&#039;,
	&#039;metaDesc&#039; =&gt; &#039;-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...&#039;,
	&#039;disp&#039; =&gt; &#039;&lt;p style=&quot;text-align:justify&quot;&gt;-The Telegraph&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p style=&quot;text-align:justify&quot;&gt;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 &amp;lsquo;modern&amp;rsquo; 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.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p style=&quot;text-align:justify&quot;&gt;Embankments are lifelines. The Sunderbans&amp;rsquo; villages &amp;mdash; &amp;lsquo;abad&amp;rsquo; cleared for human settlement &amp;mdash; 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.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p style=&quot;text-align:justify&quot;&gt;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.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p style=&quot;text-align:justify&quot;&gt;Please &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.telegraphindia.com/amp/opinion/is-concrete-the-way-forward-in-rebuilding-the-sunderbans/cid/1784882?__twitter_impression=true&quot; title=&quot;https://www.telegraphindia.com/amp/opinion/is-concrete-the-way-forward-in-rebuilding-the-sunderbans/cid/1784882?__twitter_impression=true&quot;&gt;click here&lt;/a&gt; to read more.&lt;/p&gt;&#039;,
	&#039;lang&#039; =&gt; &#039;English&#039;,
	&#039;SITE_URL&#039; =&gt; &#039;https://im4change.in/&#039;,
	&#039;site_title&#039; =&gt; &#039;im4change&#039;,
	&#039;adminprix&#039; =&gt; &#039;admin&#039;
]
$article_current = object(App\Model\Entity\Article) {

	&#039;id&#039; =&gt; (int) 56278,
	&#039;title&#039; =&gt; &#039;Is concrete the way forward in rebuilding the Sunderbans? -Megnaa Mehtta &amp; Debjani Bhattacharyya&#039;,
	&#039;subheading&#039; =&gt; null,
	&#039;description&#039; =&gt; &#039;&lt;p style=&quot;text-align:justify&quot;&gt;-The Telegraph&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p style=&quot;text-align:justify&quot;&gt;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 &amp;lsquo;modern&amp;rsquo; 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.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p style=&quot;text-align:justify&quot;&gt;Embankments are lifelines. The Sunderbans&amp;rsquo; villages &amp;mdash; &amp;lsquo;abad&amp;rsquo; cleared for human settlement &amp;mdash; 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.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p style=&quot;text-align:justify&quot;&gt;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.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p style=&quot;text-align:justify&quot;&gt;Please &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.telegraphindia.com/amp/opinion/is-concrete-the-way-forward-in-rebuilding-the-sunderbans/cid/1784882?__twitter_impression=true&quot;&gt;click here&lt;/a&gt; to read more.&lt;/p&gt;
&#039;,
	&#039;credit_writer&#039; =&gt; &#039;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&#039;,
	&#039;article_img&#039; =&gt; &#039;&#039;,
	&#039;article_img_thumb&#039; =&gt; &#039;&#039;,
	&#039;status&#039; =&gt; (int) 1,
	&#039;show_on_home&#039; =&gt; (int) 1,
	&#039;lang&#039; =&gt; &#039;EN&#039;,
	&#039;category_id&#039; =&gt; (int) 16,
	&#039;tag_keyword&#039; =&gt; &#039;&#039;,
	&#039;seo_url&#039; =&gt; &#039;concrete-and-cinder-block-embankments-sometimes-they-do-more-harm-than-good&#039;,
	&#039;meta_title&#039; =&gt; &#039;&#039;,
	&#039;meta_keywords&#039; =&gt; &#039;&#039;,
	&#039;meta_description&#039; =&gt; &#039;&#039;,
	&#039;noindex&#039; =&gt; (int) 1,
	&#039;publish_date&#039; =&gt; object(Cake\I18n\FrozenDate) {},
	&#039;most_visit_section_id&#039; =&gt; null,
	&#039;article_big_img&#039; =&gt; null,
	&#039;liveid&#039; =&gt; null,
	&#039;created&#039; =&gt; object(Cake\I18n\FrozenTime) {},
	&#039;modified&#039; =&gt; object(Cake\I18n\FrozenTime) {},
	&#039;edate&#039; =&gt; &#039;&#039;,
	&#039;tags&#039; =&gt; [
		(int) 0 =&gt; object(Cake\ORM\Entity) {},
		(int) 1 =&gt; object(Cake\ORM\Entity) {},
		(int) 2 =&gt; object(Cake\ORM\Entity) {},
		(int) 3 =&gt; object(Cake\ORM\Entity) {}
	],
	&#039;category&#039; =&gt; object(App\Model\Entity\Category) {},
	&#039;[new]&#039; =&gt; false,
	&#039;[accessible]&#039; =&gt; [
		&#039;*&#039; =&gt; true,
		&#039;id&#039; =&gt; false
	],
	&#039;[dirty]&#039; =&gt; [],
	&#039;[original]&#039; =&gt; [],
	&#039;[virtual]&#039; =&gt; [],
	&#039;[hasErrors]&#039; =&gt; false,
	&#039;[errors]&#039; =&gt; [],
	&#039;[invalid]&#039; =&gt; [],
	&#039;[repository]&#039; =&gt; &#039;Articles&#039;

}
$articleid = (int) 56278
$metaTitle = &#039;LATEST NEWS UPDATES | Is concrete the way forward in rebuilding the Sunderbans? -Megnaa Mehtta &amp; Debjani Bhattacharyya&#039;
$metaKeywords = &#039;Cyclone Amphan,Concrete Embankments,Cinder Block Concrete Embankments,Sunderbans&#039;
$metaDesc = &#039;-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...&#039;
$disp = &#039;&lt;p style=&quot;text-align:justify&quot;&gt;-The Telegraph&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p style=&quot;text-align:justify&quot;&gt;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 &amp;lsquo;modern&amp;rsquo; 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.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p style=&quot;text-align:justify&quot;&gt;Embankments are lifelines. The Sunderbans&amp;rsquo; villages &amp;mdash; &amp;lsquo;abad&amp;rsquo; cleared for human settlement &amp;mdash; 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.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p style=&quot;text-align:justify&quot;&gt;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.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p style=&quot;text-align:justify&quot;&gt;Please &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.telegraphindia.com/amp/opinion/is-concrete-the-way-forward-in-rebuilding-the-sunderbans/cid/1784882?__twitter_impression=true&quot; title=&quot;https://www.telegraphindia.com/amp/opinion/is-concrete-the-way-forward-in-rebuilding-the-sunderbans/cid/1784882?__twitter_impression=true&quot;&gt;click here&lt;/a&gt; to read more.&lt;/p&gt;&#039;
$lang = &#039;English&#039;
$SITE_URL = &#039;https://im4change.in/&#039;
$site_title = &#039;im4change&#039;
$adminprix = &#039;admin&#039;</pre><pre class="stack-trace">include - APP/Template/Layout/printlayout.ctp, line 8
Cake\View\View::_evaluate() - CORE/src/View/View.php, line 1413
Cake\View\View::_render() - CORE/src/View/View.php, line 1374
Cake\View\View::renderLayout() - CORE/src/View/View.php, line 927
Cake\View\View::render() - CORE/src/View/View.php, line 885
Cake\Controller\Controller::render() - CORE/src/Controller/Controller.php, line 791
Cake\Http\ActionDispatcher::_invoke() - CORE/src/Http/ActionDispatcher.php, line 126
Cake\Http\ActionDispatcher::dispatch() - CORE/src/Http/ActionDispatcher.php, line 94
Cake\Http\BaseApplication::__invoke() - CORE/src/Http/BaseApplication.php, line 235
Cake\Http\Runner::__invoke() - CORE/src/Http/Runner.php, line 65
Cake\Routing\Middleware\RoutingMiddleware::__invoke() - CORE/src/Routing/Middleware/RoutingMiddleware.php, line 162
Cake\Http\Runner::__invoke() - CORE/src/Http/Runner.php, line 65
Cake\Routing\Middleware\AssetMiddleware::__invoke() - CORE/src/Routing/Middleware/AssetMiddleware.php, line 88
Cake\Http\Runner::__invoke() - CORE/src/Http/Runner.php, line 65
Cake\Error\Middleware\ErrorHandlerMiddleware::__invoke() - CORE/src/Error/Middleware/ErrorHandlerMiddleware.php, line 96
Cake\Http\Runner::__invoke() - CORE/src/Http/Runner.php, line 65
Cake\Http\Runner::run() - CORE/src/Http/Runner.php, line 51</pre></div></pre>latest-news-updates/concrete-and-cinder-block-embankments-sometimes-they-do-more-harm-than-good.html"/>
    <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"/>
    <link href="https://im4change.in/css/control.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css"
          media="all"/>
    <title>LATEST NEWS UPDATES | Is concrete the way forward in rebuilding the Sunderbans? -Megnaa Mehtta & Debjani Bhattacharyya | Im4change.org</title>
    <meta name="description" content="-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..."/>
    <script src="https://im4change.in/js/jquery-1.10.2.js"></script>
    <script type="text/javascript" src="https://im4change.in/js/jquery-migrate.min.js"></script>
    <script language="javascript" type="text/javascript">

        $(document).ready(function () {
            var img = $("img")[0]; // Get my img elem
            var pic_real_width, pic_real_height;
            $("<img/>") // Make in memory copy of image to avoid css issues
                .attr("src", $(img).attr("src"))
                .load(function () {
                    pic_real_width = this.width;   // Note: $(this).width() will not
                    pic_real_height = this.height; // work for in memory images.
                });
        });
    </script>
    <style type="text/css">
        @media screen {
            div.divFooter {
                display: block;
            }
        }

        @media print {
            .printbutton {
                display: none !important;
            }
        }
    </style>
</head>
<body>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" border="0" width="98%" align="center">
    <tr>
        <td class="top_bg">
            <div class="divFooter">
                <img src="https://im4change.in/images/logo1.jpg" height="59" border="0"
                     alt="Resource centre on India's rural distress" style="padding-top:14px;"/>
            </div>

        </td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
        <td id="topspace">&nbsp;</td>
    </tr>

    <tr id="topspace">
        <td>&nbsp;</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
        <td height="50" style="border-bottom:1px solid #000; padding-top:10px;" class="printbutton">
            <form><input type="button" value=" Print this page "
                         onclick="window.print();return false;"/></form>
        </td>
    </tr>

    <tr>
        <td width="100%">
            <h1 class="news_headlines" style="font-style:normal">
                <strong>Is concrete the way forward in rebuilding the Sunderbans? -Megnaa Mehtta & Debjani Bhattacharyya</strong></h1>
        </td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
        <td width="100%" style="font-family:Arial, 'Segoe Script', 'Segoe UI', sans-serif, serif"><font size="3">
                <p style="text-align:justify">-The Telegraph</p><p style="text-align:justify">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 &lsquo;modern&rsquo; 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.</p><p style="text-align:justify">Embankments are lifelines. The Sunderbans&rsquo; villages &mdash; &lsquo;abad&rsquo; cleared for human settlement &mdash; 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.</p><p style="text-align:justify">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.</p><p style="text-align:justify">Please <a href="https://www.telegraphindia.com/amp/opinion/is-concrete-the-way-forward-in-rebuilding-the-sunderbans/cid/1784882?__twitter_impression=true" title="https://www.telegraphindia.com/amp/opinion/is-concrete-the-way-forward-in-rebuilding-the-sunderbans/cid/1784882?__twitter_impression=true">click here</a> to read more.</p>               </font>
        </td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
        <td>&nbsp;</td>
    </tr>

    <tr>
        <td height="50" style="border-top:1px solid #000; border-bottom:1px solid #000;padding-top:10px;">
            <form><input type="button" value=" Print this page "
                         onclick="window.print();return false;"/></form>
        </td>
    </tr>
</table></body>
</html>'

}
$cookies = []
$values = [
	(int) 0 => 'text/html; charset=UTF-8'
]
$name = 'Content-Type'
$first = true
$value = 'text/html; charset=UTF-8'
header - [internal], line ??
Cake\Http\ResponseEmitter::emitHeaders() - CORE/src/Http/ResponseEmitter.php, line 181
Cake\Http\ResponseEmitter::emit() - CORE/src/Http/ResponseEmitter.php, line 55
Cake\Http\Server::emit() - CORE/src/Http/Server.php, line 141
[main] - ROOT/webroot/index.php, line 39

<head>

    <link rel="canonical" href="<?php echo Configure::read('SITE_URL'); ?><?php echo $urlPrefix;?><?php echo $article_current->category->slug; ?>/<?php echo $article_current->seo_url; ?>.html"/>

    <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"/>

$viewFile = '/home/brlfuser/public_html/src/Template/Layout/printlayout.ctp'
$dataForView = [
	'article_current' => object(App\Model\Entity\Article) {

		'id' => (int) 56278,
		'title' => 'Is concrete the way forward in rebuilding the Sunderbans? -Megnaa Mehtta & Debjani Bhattacharyya',
		'subheading' => null,
		'description' => '<p style="text-align:justify">-The Telegraph</p>

<p style="text-align:justify">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 &lsquo;modern&rsquo; 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.</p>

<p style="text-align:justify">Embankments are lifelines. The Sunderbans&rsquo; villages &mdash; &lsquo;abad&rsquo; cleared for human settlement &mdash; 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.</p>

<p style="text-align:justify">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.</p>

<p style="text-align:justify">Please <a href="https://www.telegraphindia.com/amp/opinion/is-concrete-the-way-forward-in-rebuilding-the-sunderbans/cid/1784882?__twitter_impression=true">click here</a> to read more.</p>
',
		'credit_writer' => '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',
		'article_img' => '',
		'article_img_thumb' => '',
		'status' => (int) 1,
		'show_on_home' => (int) 1,
		'lang' => 'EN',
		'category_id' => (int) 16,
		'tag_keyword' => '',
		'seo_url' => 'concrete-and-cinder-block-embankments-sometimes-they-do-more-harm-than-good',
		'meta_title' => '',
		'meta_keywords' => '',
		'meta_description' => '',
		'noindex' => (int) 1,
		'publish_date' => object(Cake\I18n\FrozenDate) {},
		'most_visit_section_id' => null,
		'article_big_img' => null,
		'liveid' => null,
		'created' => object(Cake\I18n\FrozenTime) {},
		'modified' => object(Cake\I18n\FrozenTime) {},
		'edate' => '',
		'tags' => [
			[maximum depth reached]
		],
		'category' => object(App\Model\Entity\Category) {},
		'[new]' => false,
		'[accessible]' => [
			[maximum depth reached]
		],
		'[dirty]' => [[maximum depth reached]],
		'[original]' => [[maximum depth reached]],
		'[virtual]' => [[maximum depth reached]],
		'[hasErrors]' => false,
		'[errors]' => [[maximum depth reached]],
		'[invalid]' => [[maximum depth reached]],
		'[repository]' => 'Articles'
	
	},
	'articleid' => (int) 56278,
	'metaTitle' => 'LATEST NEWS UPDATES | Is concrete the way forward in rebuilding the Sunderbans? -Megnaa Mehtta & Debjani Bhattacharyya',
	'metaKeywords' => 'Cyclone Amphan,Concrete Embankments,Cinder Block Concrete Embankments,Sunderbans',
	'metaDesc' => '-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...',
	'disp' => '<p style="text-align:justify">-The Telegraph</p><p style="text-align:justify">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 &lsquo;modern&rsquo; 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.</p><p style="text-align:justify">Embankments are lifelines. The Sunderbans&rsquo; villages &mdash; &lsquo;abad&rsquo; cleared for human settlement &mdash; 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.</p><p style="text-align:justify">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.</p><p style="text-align:justify">Please <a href="https://www.telegraphindia.com/amp/opinion/is-concrete-the-way-forward-in-rebuilding-the-sunderbans/cid/1784882?__twitter_impression=true" title="https://www.telegraphindia.com/amp/opinion/is-concrete-the-way-forward-in-rebuilding-the-sunderbans/cid/1784882?__twitter_impression=true">click here</a> to read more.</p>',
	'lang' => 'English',
	'SITE_URL' => 'https://im4change.in/',
	'site_title' => 'im4change',
	'adminprix' => 'admin'
]
$article_current = object(App\Model\Entity\Article) {

	'id' => (int) 56278,
	'title' => 'Is concrete the way forward in rebuilding the Sunderbans? -Megnaa Mehtta & Debjani Bhattacharyya',
	'subheading' => null,
	'description' => '<p style="text-align:justify">-The Telegraph</p>

<p style="text-align:justify">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 &lsquo;modern&rsquo; 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.</p>

<p style="text-align:justify">Embankments are lifelines. The Sunderbans&rsquo; villages &mdash; &lsquo;abad&rsquo; cleared for human settlement &mdash; 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.</p>

<p style="text-align:justify">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.</p>

<p style="text-align:justify">Please <a href="https://www.telegraphindia.com/amp/opinion/is-concrete-the-way-forward-in-rebuilding-the-sunderbans/cid/1784882?__twitter_impression=true">click here</a> to read more.</p>
',
	'credit_writer' => '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',
	'article_img' => '',
	'article_img_thumb' => '',
	'status' => (int) 1,
	'show_on_home' => (int) 1,
	'lang' => 'EN',
	'category_id' => (int) 16,
	'tag_keyword' => '',
	'seo_url' => 'concrete-and-cinder-block-embankments-sometimes-they-do-more-harm-than-good',
	'meta_title' => '',
	'meta_keywords' => '',
	'meta_description' => '',
	'noindex' => (int) 1,
	'publish_date' => object(Cake\I18n\FrozenDate) {},
	'most_visit_section_id' => null,
	'article_big_img' => null,
	'liveid' => null,
	'created' => object(Cake\I18n\FrozenTime) {},
	'modified' => object(Cake\I18n\FrozenTime) {},
	'edate' => '',
	'tags' => [
		(int) 0 => object(Cake\ORM\Entity) {},
		(int) 1 => object(Cake\ORM\Entity) {},
		(int) 2 => object(Cake\ORM\Entity) {},
		(int) 3 => object(Cake\ORM\Entity) {}
	],
	'category' => object(App\Model\Entity\Category) {},
	'[new]' => false,
	'[accessible]' => [
		'*' => true,
		'id' => false
	],
	'[dirty]' => [],
	'[original]' => [],
	'[virtual]' => [],
	'[hasErrors]' => false,
	'[errors]' => [],
	'[invalid]' => [],
	'[repository]' => 'Articles'

}
$articleid = (int) 56278
$metaTitle = 'LATEST NEWS UPDATES | Is concrete the way forward in rebuilding the Sunderbans? -Megnaa Mehtta & Debjani Bhattacharyya'
$metaKeywords = 'Cyclone Amphan,Concrete Embankments,Cinder Block Concrete Embankments,Sunderbans'
$metaDesc = '-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...'
$disp = '<p style="text-align:justify">-The Telegraph</p><p style="text-align:justify">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 &lsquo;modern&rsquo; 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.</p><p style="text-align:justify">Embankments are lifelines. The Sunderbans&rsquo; villages &mdash; &lsquo;abad&rsquo; cleared for human settlement &mdash; 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.</p><p style="text-align:justify">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.</p><p style="text-align:justify">Please <a href="https://www.telegraphindia.com/amp/opinion/is-concrete-the-way-forward-in-rebuilding-the-sunderbans/cid/1784882?__twitter_impression=true" title="https://www.telegraphindia.com/amp/opinion/is-concrete-the-way-forward-in-rebuilding-the-sunderbans/cid/1784882?__twitter_impression=true">click here</a> to read more.</p>'
$lang = 'English'
$SITE_URL = 'https://im4change.in/'
$site_title = 'im4change'
$adminprix = 'admin'

include - APP/Template/Layout/printlayout.ctp, line 8
Cake\View\View::_evaluate() - CORE/src/View/View.php, line 1413
Cake\View\View::_render() - CORE/src/View/View.php, line 1374
Cake\View\View::renderLayout() - CORE/src/View/View.php, line 927
Cake\View\View::render() - CORE/src/View/View.php, line 885
Cake\Controller\Controller::render() - CORE/src/Controller/Controller.php, line 791
Cake\Http\ActionDispatcher::_invoke() - CORE/src/Http/ActionDispatcher.php, line 126
Cake\Http\ActionDispatcher::dispatch() - CORE/src/Http/ActionDispatcher.php, line 94
Cake\Http\BaseApplication::__invoke() - CORE/src/Http/BaseApplication.php, line 235
Cake\Http\Runner::__invoke() - CORE/src/Http/Runner.php, line 65
Cake\Routing\Middleware\RoutingMiddleware::__invoke() - CORE/src/Routing/Middleware/RoutingMiddleware.php, line 162
Cake\Http\Runner::__invoke() - CORE/src/Http/Runner.php, line 65
Cake\Routing\Middleware\AssetMiddleware::__invoke() - CORE/src/Routing/Middleware/AssetMiddleware.php, line 88
Cake\Http\Runner::__invoke() - CORE/src/Http/Runner.php, line 65
Cake\Error\Middleware\ErrorHandlerMiddleware::__invoke() - CORE/src/Error/Middleware/ErrorHandlerMiddleware.php, line 96
Cake\Http\Runner::__invoke() - CORE/src/Http/Runner.php, line 65
Cake\Http\Runner::run() - CORE/src/Http/Runner.php, line 51

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

-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. Please click here to read more.