Full Transcript for Climate solution series: how Bangladesh adapts to erosion, floods, and rising seas

riverbank erosion and flooding that is occurring each year during the monsoon season between June and September. 00:06:38.389 --> 00:06:58.069 This erosion and flooding are the two environmental changes that we picked for our study as a case study to understand what people do if they lose their house and their belongings and potentially also their agricultural land due to the erosion. 00:06:58.069 --> 00:07:16.389 Because the erosion, maybe also there to give some context, it's happening on a different scale than what we might be used from from Europe, where of course rivers also have some erosion, but usually it's maybe a few centimeters each year, maybe on severe years 10-20 centimetres. 00:07:16.389 --> 00:07:31.029 But in Bangladesh, it can really be in along this Jamuna River, maybe two-three hundred meters in just a few weeks, because the soil is very sandy, so it has very little resistance to the flow of water when it increases during the monsoon. 00:07:31.029 --> 00:07:37.430 And so that basically means that sometimes entire villages get washed away in just a few weeks. 00:07:38.230 --> 00:07:40.629 So there are many different reasons for migrating. 00:07:40.629 --> 00:07:46.550 It's not an easy task to find out what the influence of climate change on migration numbers and patterns are. 00:07:46.870 --> 00:07:59.269 We picked around 36 villages along this Jamuna River, and then over time, with the upcoming monsoon season, some of these villages they were affected by erosion and some were not. 00:07:59.269 --> 00:08:08.069 And that setting basically allows us then later on, in a statistical sense, to compare how many people moved in the villages that were not affected. 00:08:08.069 --> 00:08:14.709 And let's say there we maybe find, I just now say a random number, let's say 10% of people moving. 00:08:14.709 --> 00:08:22.149 And then in the treated villages, those that have experienced erosion, maybe 13 or 14% migrate. 00:08:22.149 --> 00:08:25.189 And then these differences, 3 to 4 percentage points. 00:08:25.189 --> 00:08:29.670 This is then now the effect of erosion and flooding on migration. 00:08:29.670 --> 00:08:32.629 But the study went far beyond numbers for statistics. 00:08:32.629 --> 00:08:48.149 So we had a large team of Bangladeshi students, and we conducted a study over a time period of three years between 2021 and 2024, and once a year traveled to the villages to interview our 2200 respondents. 00:08:48.149 --> 00:09:07.190 Once people started moving, that's of course where it becomes, on the one hand, interesting, but also tricky to find them and took a lot of effort on the side also of our team and students who really invested a lot of energy in traveling to the new home of our respondents to interview them there. 00:09:07.190 --> 00:09:30.549 And so we now have a three-year history basically of these 2,200 people, how their lives evolved, both in terms of whether they were affected by erosion and flooding, and also whether they moved or not, and if they moved, where to, and how then their lives evolved, both in economic sense, but also in terms of whether they're happy or not, whether they're satisfied with their lives. 00:09:30.549 --> 00:09:51.750 And then also in between these in-person surveys, we had shorter phone surveys every six to eight weeks to also get a fine-grained understanding of when does movement happen during the monsoon, because that's often the also very challenging period in the villages when the flood water comes and there's maybe half a meter of water in the villages. 00:09:51.750 --> 00:09:55.910 It's very difficult for people to maintain their daily life. 00:09:55.910 --> 00:10:06.789 You can imagine there's sometimes even water in the houses, so they have to shift all the belongings to storage space below the roof, but then cooking gets more and more difficult, etc. 00:10:07.589 --> 00:10:14.390 At this point, we should say that these kind of environmental changes along the Jamuna are not primarily climate-driven. 00:10:14.390 --> 00:10:18.390 They happen to a great part due to the geological situation. 00:10:18.390 --> 00:10:23.430 The monsoon seasons are also a natural pre-climate change phenomenon. 00:10:23.430 --> 00:10:25.910 However, climate change also has an impact. 00:10:25.910 --> 00:10:32.869 It changes the monsoon patterns, leading to heavier rain during the monsoon season, but less during the dry season. 00:10:32.869 --> 00:10:37.029 And it also melts the glaciers in the Himalayas, which feed the Jamuna River. 00:10:37.430 --> 00:10:37.750 Exactly. 00:10:37.750 --> 00:10:40.230 That's also what Jan Freihart pointed out to me. 00:10:40.230 --> 00:10:47.750 Still, Bangladesh is an ideal case study for him since it shows what happens to people when their land at homes get washed away. 00:10:47.750 --> 00:10:55.269 And that's something other parts of the world will have to face as sea levels rise, and of course the coastal erosion that comes with that. 00:10:55.750 --> 00:10:57.670 So what did the researchers find out? 00:10:58.549 --> 00:11:03.029 Well, Freihart told me that the findings were actually a bit of a surprise to them. 00:11:03.509 --> 00:11:11.829 Starting the study, we had this hypothesis, okay, when people lose their land, they just pack their things and they move to the next city, or maybe even to the capital, Dhaka. 00:11:11.829 --> 00:11:22.630 But in our case we observed a very different pattern that actually many people or most of our people who had lost their house and their land, they stayed within the village. 00:11:22.630 --> 00:11:35.349 So they maybe just shifted two, three hundred meters inland, they took whatever they could still save before the erosion happened, basically dismantled the house, carried it a few hundred meters inland, rebuilt it. 00:11:35.349 --> 00:11:43.430 And then maybe next year the erosion came again, so the river again came closer, so they again shifted a few hundred

meters inland. 00:11:43.430 --> 00:11:49.269 So this pattern of very short distance moves that happened repeatedly over the years. 00:11:49.670 --> 00:11:52.390 The researchers found two reasons for this behavior. 00:11:52.390 --> 00:12:06.549 Either people simply lacked the means for relocating, given that they had lost everything during natural disaster, or, and this was the vast majority of those staying, they simply didn't want to move away from their communities, families, or what was left of their land. 00:12:06.789 --> 00:12:19.670 The takeaways that I now draw from that Bangladesh study is very clearly there is an influence of environmental changes on migration, that in the villages that have erosion, more people migrate out of the village. 00:12:19.670 --> 00:12:23.829 But then basically all of them remain within Bangladesh. 00:12:23.829 --> 00:12:30.549 So we also have some people who left the villages abroad, but this is classical labor migration. 00:12:30.549 --> 00:12:47.190 So they go to Qatar or to Saudi Arabia for a job purpose, and this is also, I think, can be explained why this is rarely happening, that it's really the erosion that leads to international migration, because as mentioned, erosion usually takes a lot of the resources and the wealth of people. 00:12:47.190 --> 00:12:54.710 So it already comes at a cost to even get the work permit, the passport, the flight tickets, etc., to go to Saudi Arabia. 00:12:54.710 --> 00:13:09.109 And I think this also extrapolates to many other world regions, like many studies in other countries that I've read, they find very similar things that those affected by climate change, they usually move very short distance. 00:13:09.109 --> 00:13:20.869 And so I think this narrative of climate change will lead to massive international migration flows and millions of people will move into Europe or into North America due to climate change. 00:13:20.869 --> 00:13:25.269 I think this is right now not supported by what the literature finds. 00:13:25.269 --> 00:13:30.710 I think if that migration happens, then it's primarily due to economic inequalities. 00:13:30.710 --> 00:13:44.950 So if we are somehow concerned about these huge international migration flows, then I think it's uh it's also important to look at these global inequalities and where they come from and not to focus solely on climate change. 00:13:45.430 --> 00:13:49.990 And Yanis, are the authorities in Bangladesh doing anything to help these people? 00:13:50.630 --> 00:13:56.069 Yes, uh actually they have started to build embankments and to reinforce some of the riverbanks. 00:13:56.069 --> 00:14:01.190 However, it seems that some villages are getting the support while others do not. 00:14:01.190 --> 00:14:08.230 And this is what Freihart wants to look at in a follow-up project on the justice implications of climate adaptations. 00:14:08.630 --> 00:14:09.349 Okay, interesting. 00:14:09.349 --> 00:14:12.869 So we might hear more from Freihart's research in the future. 00:14:12.869 --> 00:14:21.589 But now we're going to the south of Bangladesh, to the Sundarbans, an area in the Ganges Delta, which features the largest mangrove forests in the world. 00:14:21.589 --> 00:14:28.470 And Yanis, you told me that the climate-related problems here are a bit different from the ones we just heard about happening in the north of the country. 00:14:28.950 --> 00:14:29.750 Yes, exactly. 00:14:29.750 --> 00:14:35.750 I got to speak to Gina Hosin, who's from Bangladesh herself and works as a research fellow at the University of Zurich. 00:14:35.750 --> 00:14:37.910 And she's conducting several studies in the St. 00:14:37.910 --> 00:14:38.549 Urbans. 00:15:10.230 --> 00:15:19.190 So it's difficult for the people to be there when there is a cyclone or flood and they have to relocate or they are forced to relocate in some cases. 00:15:19.190 --> 00:15:27.990 But also sometimes they volunteer to live on those places and survive within these uh catastrophic causes. 00:15:28.549 --> 00:15:34.069 So people in the south face similar environmental problems to the ones people face up north. 00:15:34.069 --> 00:15:36.869 The problem specific to the south, though, is salinity. 00:15:37.109 --> 00:15:59.349 There are sea level rise, and then in the 1980s, around that time, people started aqua farming, prominently shrimp aquaculture, independently, but then it was supported by government and uh donors and NGOs because they thought they should use the saline water for bigger purpose, commercial purpose, like commercial shrimp aquaculture, and now it is spread a lot in the last few decades. 00:15:59.349 --> 00:16:06.390 And that made even the situation worse because the salt is everywhere. 00:16:06.390 --> 00:16:08.789 Uh, people cannot grow now the rice. 00:16:08.789 --> 00:16:14.470 People don't have agriculture anymore, so they have to go for other alternative livelihood options. 00:16:14.470 --> 00:16:26.150 So they uh migrate to the nearby cities or nearby uh districts for doing some other works like day labor or rickshaw pulling or working in the brick factory, which is very popular. 00:16:26.150 --> 00:16:36.470 Many migrate to Dhaka for the textile industry because you might know that uh we host uh the second largest textile industries in the world, and there's a huge option for the women to work there. 00:16:36.470 --> 00:16:45.670 Also, it's possible that they migrate abroad in the Middle East as labor, because that's also a big uh source of our national economy. 00:16:45.670 --> 00:16:49.349 Uh, this immigration and labor migration in the Middle East. 00:16:49.349 --> 00:16:58.789 Climate is one of the factors because most of the cases people lose their household, their belongings uh in cyclone or longer flood or waterlogging. 00:16:58.789 --> 00:17:09.509 But also, there are many other factors actually triggered them to make the decision of uh leaving their home and go for some other places.

00:17:10.470 --> 00:17:20.230 And uh can you tell us, is there some kind of uh government help for people that uh want to or have to dislocate or to even migrate within the country? 00:17:20.710 --> 00:17:25.029 So for the government we have cyclone center, most of the digester-prone area. 00:17:25.029 --> 00:17:28.150 So you can temporarily go and have shelter there. 00:17:28.150 --> 00:17:37.589 Uh, but the area where I work in Shatkira and Kulna, that region, I didn't find any permanent solution for this relocation. 00:17:37.589 --> 00:17:50.309 So there are uh projects called Astrayon uh projects that's like you give um uh household to the poor people, not only the climate migrants, but in general poor people. 00:17:50.309 --> 00:17:53.190 And that's everywhere uh nationwide. 00:17:53.190 --> 00:17:58.470 So that's not something specifically for the climate displaced or climate migrant people. 00:17:58.470 --> 00:18:16.870 But apart from that, what I observed during my uh field study that people actually rely on their social network mostly to take shelter when the cyclone center is not accessible, or maybe it's longer term and you cannot just stay in the cyclone center for for like years. 00:18:16.870 --> 00:18:25.350 So they try to get help from their social network, and that really helped them to um start again, like restart their life. 00:18:25.350 --> 00:18:52.470 And that is very inspiring that we see that where um the government or the adaptation governance sometimes is not so supportive, or I would say weak for the marginal community, uh, then how this marginal community or this vulnerable community really find a way with their social network to move forward, and I think super inspiring for the other countries who are struggling with the same reason. 00:18:52.870 --> 00:18:56.390 I asked Jinat how she sees Bangladesh's role as a pioneer. 00:18:56.390 --> 00:18:58.710 Could solutions here work for other regions too? 00:18:59.029 --> 00:19:06.950 In terms of governance, yes, we have good projects and good initiatives, and those can be, of course, example for the other parts of the world. 00:19:06.950 --> 00:19:20.870 But I would say, as a researcher, I'm also critical about some of the initiatives that the government has taken because there is a lot of um tendency of using climate change as a fundraising mechanism for the government and NGOs. 00:19:20.870 --> 00:19:31.350 And I think some benefits go to the people who are victims, but uh some also we heard that being corrupted or um used for other purposes. 00:19:31.350 --> 00:19:38.390 And the projects they are taking often in my analysis, it uh I found that they are promoting new liberal mechanisms. 00:19:38.390 --> 00:19:51.750 For example, I give example of the shrimp aquaculture, which has been taken as climate change adaptation measures by the government and by donors and NGOs, but now we see that that has a huge trade-off, uh, social ecological trade-off. 00:19:51.750 --> 00:19:57.670 One is the soil quality is degrading because you cannot produce any rice or vegetables anymore. 00:19:57.670 --> 00:20:13.509 On the other hand, there's a huge social impact because people are unemployed, they lose their farms, they lose their ponds and domestic animals, and they have to migrate, or they have to find some alternative livelihood options, especially for the women who are living on farmlands. 00:20:13.509 --> 00:20:36.870 So that's a huge gender and class impact, and that actually changed the whole situation in that area because there are a lot of external people coming to do shrimp aquaculture, having the shrimp factory, and they are high class, and then the people who cannot farm, they have to give over their land and they become poorer and they become the labor of these high-class people. 00:20:36.870 --> 00:20:40.470 So the even the class structure is shifting. 00:20:40.470 --> 00:20:48.710 I think that has a big social uh consequence in the society that we need to consider also when we design climate migration program. 00:20:49.509 --> 00:20:51.509 The topic is really complex, isn't it? 00:20:51.509 --> 00:21:03.269 Some climate adaptation projects like the shrimp farms might seem like a good idea at first, but then there are negative social and perhaps also environmental consequences that have to be taken into account as well. 00:21:03.750 --> 00:21:07.509 Yes, and not only that, it also reinforces gender inequality. 00:21:08.070 --> 00:21:26.230 For example, when the men migrate, either seasonally or permanently, he left the families, and the family now start leading by the women, and the women has to find some job option or livelihood option because their option of household agriculture is now gone. 00:21:26.230 --> 00:21:40.230 So they have to go out, either work in the shrimp factory or catching, fetching some uh shrimp baby shrimp to sell in the market, and the market is exploitative for the women, and if they work as a daily, they are getting less payment than the male. 00:21:40.230 --> 00:21:47.990 So all these exploitation actually even getting higher when women are in the in the market and in the public sphere. 00:21:47.990 --> 00:22:05.750 On the other hand, when men go to other places, often they disappear or they have uh another wife there, and then more single-headed or female-headed households are appearing, and these women are leading the whole household alone, and there are more vulnerabilities. 00:22:19.910 --> 00:22:32.710 Do recent cutbacks on money for development aid, I'm thinking from US aid, for example, that's been a very big topic that's been going on in the past few months, do these cutbacks have an impact on the situation in Bangladesh? 00:22:33.190 --> 00:22:38.470 Yes, not just the US aid cuts, but many others as well, especially from Western countries. 00:22:38.470 --> 00:22:48.549 Switzerland, for example, has been engaged in Bangladesh for five decades, and tackling the negative effects of climate change has been a key pillar of its bilateral support. 00:22:48.549 --> 00:22:54.870 But now Switzerland's international development Cooperation has fallen victim to the country's austerity measures. 00:22:54.870 --> 00:23:00.870 Around 430 million Swiss francs have been cut from the budget for the next few years. 00:23:00.870 --> 00:23:09.910 And as a consequence, the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation will phase out its bilateral development programs in Bangladesh by the end of 2028. 00:23:09.910 --> 00:23:14.390 So that's a lot of money and that will be missing in some places. 00:23:15.269 --> 00:23:15.910 Absolutely. 00:23:15.910 --> 00:23:18.710 We're going to have to see how things develop in the future. 00:23:18.710 --> 00:23:24.150 So thank you, Yanis, for this very interesting story and also for joining us on the Swiss Connection Podcast for the first time. 00:23:24.470 --> 00:23:24.870 You're welcome. 00:23:24.870 --> 00:23:25.750 Thanks a lot. 00:23:27.590 --> 00:23:35.269 In the next episode of the Swiss Connection Science Podcast, we'll find out why Switzerland is so keen to get into the business of semiconductors. 00:23:35.269 --> 00:23:38.390 They're an essential but difficult to produce piece of tech. 00:23:38.390 --> 00:23:42.150 Hit subscribe now in your podcast feed to make sure you don't miss out. 00:23:42.150 --> 00:23:53.269 For more science stories, you can visit our website swisinfo.ch, and you can help others to find our podcast by leaving us a five-star review or sharing our podcast with a friend. 00:23:53.269 --> 00:24:06.789 Today's episode was recorded and edited by our science and video Michele Andina journalist For more content, check out our website swisinfo.ch. 00:24:06.789 --> 00:24:07.910 I'm Jo Fahy. 00:24:07.910 --> 00:24:09.509 Thanks for listening.