This paper analyses and assesses how existing policies and approaches in South Asia consider long... more This paper analyses and assesses how existing policies and approaches in South Asia consider long-term climate change adaptation. Presently, it is unclear what approaches are used in the existing policies to cope with the future climatic changes. Our research framework consists of two components. First, we identify and define key characteristics of adaptation policy approaches based on a review of scientific journal articles. The key characteristics identified are institutional flexibility, adaptive nature, scalability and reflexivity. Second, we analyse the presence of these characteristics in the climate change adaptation policies of Bangladesh, India, Nepal, and Pakistan. Our findings show that the four South Asian countries contribute to only 8% of the total journal articles on adaptation policy, with least papers representing Pakistan and Nepal. Reviewing the adaptation policies, we find that except for the Climate Change Policy of Nepal, none of the policies discusses transboundary scale adaptation approaches. The identified adaptation policies lack focus on shared transboundary resources between the countries, and instead focus at national or sub-national scale. This is reflected by relatively low scores for the scalability characteristic. All the countries show high scores for institutional flexibility, suggesting that changing roles and responsibilities between government agencies for adaptation planning and implementation is accepted in the four countries. We conclude that to prevent a loss of flexibility and to promote scalability of shared transboundary resources, policy approaches such as anticipatory governance, robust decision-making, and adaptation pathways can be useful for long-term climate change adaptation.
Necessity of Sustainable water demand management (SWDM) is immensely higher in the rapidly urbani... more Necessity of Sustainable water demand management (SWDM) is immensely higher in the rapidly urbanized mega cities of the world where groundwater depletion and water deficit are taking place perilously. This paper focuses on the present condition of water demand, supply, system loss, pricing strategy, groundwater level, and per capita water consumption of Dhaka city, Bangladesh. The study founds population growth has a large influence on water demand to rise and demand of water is not responsive to the existing pricing rule adopted by DWASA. It emerges that, water demand is increasing at 4% rate an average in the Dhaka city since 1990 and groundwater table goes more than 70 m down in central capital due to extensive withdrawal of water. The study suggests an integrated SWDM approach, which incorporates optimum pricing, ground and surface water regulation, water conservation, sustainable water consumption and less water foot print to ease groundwater depletion. In order to attain sustainability in water demand management (WDM) the study recommends certain criteria under economic, social and environmental segment to administer the increasing water demand of growing population and conserve the fresh water resources of the world's mega cities for social–ecological resilience building.
Climate changes imposed differential impacts on Bangladesh in the form of sea level rise, extreme... more Climate changes imposed differential impacts on Bangladesh in the form of sea level rise, extreme events, and variability, which has enormous economic, environmental and social cost. Such impacts are assorted across the ecosystems of the Southwest, Northwest and Central region of the country. Among the different sectors, agriculture is comparatively more vulnerable to climate change impacts. In order to reduce the climate change induced loss and damage, a series of adaptation options have been being practiced by the people at the local level for many years, but the effectiveness, profitability, and sustainability of such adaptation options are still not too well investigated or understood. From this backdrop, the study intends to identify, prioritize and evaluate the adaptation options in the agriculture of different ecosystems of Bangladesh. It is found that the economic gain of adopting rice prawn farming, replantation of rice, and saline tolerant and short duration rice varieties are much higher than the other adaption options. Through investing $10 in such adaptation options, $22, $4, $2 and $2 net return will be provided, respectively. Unavailability and less affordability are impeding the promotion of some effective adaption options, which require more attention from policy makers, while further research, demonstration and capacity building of the farmers will reduce vulnerability and build resilience.
Bangladesh is losing huge food production from the Teesta catchment area due to a lack of availab... more Bangladesh is losing huge food production from the Teesta catchment area due to a lack of availability of irrigation water in the dry and lean period because of unilateral water withdrawal in the upstream country, India. The area, which is directly dependent on the irrigation water of the Teesta river, is the study area for this paper. The study reveals that rice production in Dalia, Nilphamari, Sayedpur and Rangpur regions is badly affected by the irrigation water scarcity. It appears that production is particularly severely affected in Rangpur, making it a relatively more food insecure area in the Teesta basin. The major finding of this study is that more than 4.45 million metric tons of rice production have been missed from the Teesta catchment area since 2006-07, triggered by the massive irrigation failure of the Teesta Barrage Irrigation Project (TBIP) due to reduced water flow in the Teesta river. The total rice production missed in the northwestern region since 2006-07 is more than the country's total rice import during 2008/09-2013/14 fiscal years and nearly one quarter of the total boro production in the 2012/13 fiscal year. This reduced food production renders the northwestern part of the country a food insecure region from its own production.
The water demand in the upstream and downstream of a transboundary river basin varies based on th... more The water demand in the upstream and downstream of a transboundary river basin varies based on the water use by the irrigation projects, dam, hydroelectricity, ecosystem, livelihood practices and household activities of the people. The study considered the case of Teesta river basin and estimates the water demand of upstream, downstream region as well as entire Teesta river basin shared by India and Bangladesh. The water productivity method exercised in the study demonstrates that 2648 and 1971 cumec water is required to fulfill the irrigation demand of command and irrigable areas, respectively, of entire Teesta basin throughout the year against 198, 1472, 793 cumec water discharge in dry, monsoon and lean season. Although there is a substantial water demand for the hydropower projects in the upstream, it is appeared that water required only by the upstream irrigation project is beyond the water supply capacity of the Trans-Himalayan river Teesta during dry and lean season. This may underpin the shortage of water in the lower riparian country, which fuels the zero-sum game in the river basin, where one player is affected by the intervention of the another player. The result from this analysis with zero-sum game perspective may be useful for reviewing transboundary water policies, basin management and development, sustainable water resource management and water sharing mechanism among countries in the transboundary river basin.
Climate changes imposed differential impacts on Bangladesh in the form of sea level rise, extreme... more Climate changes imposed differential impacts on Bangladesh in the form of sea level rise, extreme events, and variability, which has enormous economic, environmental and social cost. Such impacts are assorted across the ecosystems of the Southwest, Northwest and Central region of the country. Among the different sectors, agriculture is comparatively more vulnerable to climate change impacts. In order to reduce the climate change induced loss and damage, a series of adaptation options have been being practiced by the people at the local level for many years, but the effectiveness, profitability, and sustainability of such adaptation options are still not too well investigated or understood. From this backdrop, the study intends to identify, prioritize and evaluate the adaptation options in the agriculture of different ecosystems of Bangladesh. It is found that the economic gain of adopting rice prawn farming, replantation of rice, and saline tolerant and short duration rice varieties are much higher than the other adaption options. Through investing {\$}10 in such adaptation options, {\$}22, {\$}4, {\$}2 and {\$}2 net return will be provided, respectively. Unavailability and less affordability are impeding the promotion of some effective adaption options, which require more attention from policy makers, while further research, demonstration and capacity building of the farmers will reduce vulnerability and build resilience.
This paper analyses and assesses how existing policies and approaches in South Asia consider long... more This paper analyses and assesses how existing policies and approaches in South Asia consider long-term climate change adaptation. Presently, it is unclear what approaches are used in the existing policies to cope with the future climatic changes. Our research framework consists of two components. First, we identify and define key characteristics of adaptation policy approaches based on a review of scientific journal articles. The key characteristics identified are institutional flexibility, adaptive nature, scalability and reflexivity. Second, we analyse the presence of these characteristics in the climate change adaptation policies of Bangladesh, India, Nepal, and Pakistan. Our findings show that the four South Asian countries contribute to only 8% of the total journal articles on adaptation policy, with least papers representing Pakistan and Nepal. Reviewing the adaptation policies, we find that except for the Climate Change Policy of Nepal, none of the policies discusses transboundary scale adaptation approaches. The identified adaptation policies lack focus on shared transboundary resources between the countries, and instead focus at national or sub-national scale. This is reflected by relatively low scores for the scalability characteristic. All the countries show high scores for institutional flexibility, suggesting that changing roles and responsibilities between government agencies for adaptation planning and implementation is accepted in the four countries. We conclude that to prevent a loss of flexibility and to promote scalability of shared transboundary resources, policy approaches such as anticipatory governance, robust decision-making, and adaptation pathways can be useful for long-term climate change adaptation.
Necessity of Sustainable water demand management (SWDM) is immensely higher in the rapidly urbani... more Necessity of Sustainable water demand management (SWDM) is immensely higher in the rapidly urbanized mega cities of the world where groundwater depletion and water deficit are taking place perilously. This paper focuses on the present condition of water demand, supply, system loss, pricing strategy, groundwater level, and per capita water consumption of Dhaka city, Bangladesh. The study founds population growth has a large influence on water demand to rise and demand of water is not responsive to the existing pricing rule adopted by DWASA. It emerges that, water demand is increasing at 4% rate an average in the Dhaka city since 1990 and groundwater table goes more than 70 m down in central capital due to extensive withdrawal of water. The study suggests an integrated SWDM approach, which incorporates optimum pricing, ground and surface water regulation, water conservation, sustainable water consumption and less water foot print to ease groundwater depletion. In order to attain sustainability in water demand management (WDM) the study recommends certain criteria under economic, social and environmental segment to administer the increasing water demand of growing population and conserve the fresh water resources of the world's mega cities for social–ecological resilience building.
Climate changes imposed differential impacts on Bangladesh in the form of sea level rise, extreme... more Climate changes imposed differential impacts on Bangladesh in the form of sea level rise, extreme events, and variability, which has enormous economic, environmental and social cost. Such impacts are assorted across the ecosystems of the Southwest, Northwest and Central region of the country. Among the different sectors, agriculture is comparatively more vulnerable to climate change impacts. In order to reduce the climate change induced loss and damage, a series of adaptation options have been being practiced by the people at the local level for many years, but the effectiveness, profitability, and sustainability of such adaptation options are still not too well investigated or understood. From this backdrop, the study intends to identify, prioritize and evaluate the adaptation options in the agriculture of different ecosystems of Bangladesh. It is found that the economic gain of adopting rice prawn farming, replantation of rice, and saline tolerant and short duration rice varieties are much higher than the other adaption options. Through investing $10 in such adaptation options, $22, $4, $2 and $2 net return will be provided, respectively. Unavailability and less affordability are impeding the promotion of some effective adaption options, which require more attention from policy makers, while further research, demonstration and capacity building of the farmers will reduce vulnerability and build resilience.
Bangladesh is losing huge food production from the Teesta catchment area due to a lack of availab... more Bangladesh is losing huge food production from the Teesta catchment area due to a lack of availability of irrigation water in the dry and lean period because of unilateral water withdrawal in the upstream country, India. The area, which is directly dependent on the irrigation water of the Teesta river, is the study area for this paper. The study reveals that rice production in Dalia, Nilphamari, Sayedpur and Rangpur regions is badly affected by the irrigation water scarcity. It appears that production is particularly severely affected in Rangpur, making it a relatively more food insecure area in the Teesta basin. The major finding of this study is that more than 4.45 million metric tons of rice production have been missed from the Teesta catchment area since 2006-07, triggered by the massive irrigation failure of the Teesta Barrage Irrigation Project (TBIP) due to reduced water flow in the Teesta river. The total rice production missed in the northwestern region since 2006-07 is more than the country's total rice import during 2008/09-2013/14 fiscal years and nearly one quarter of the total boro production in the 2012/13 fiscal year. This reduced food production renders the northwestern part of the country a food insecure region from its own production.
The water demand in the upstream and downstream of a transboundary river basin varies based on th... more The water demand in the upstream and downstream of a transboundary river basin varies based on the water use by the irrigation projects, dam, hydroelectricity, ecosystem, livelihood practices and household activities of the people. The study considered the case of Teesta river basin and estimates the water demand of upstream, downstream region as well as entire Teesta river basin shared by India and Bangladesh. The water productivity method exercised in the study demonstrates that 2648 and 1971 cumec water is required to fulfill the irrigation demand of command and irrigable areas, respectively, of entire Teesta basin throughout the year against 198, 1472, 793 cumec water discharge in dry, monsoon and lean season. Although there is a substantial water demand for the hydropower projects in the upstream, it is appeared that water required only by the upstream irrigation project is beyond the water supply capacity of the Trans-Himalayan river Teesta during dry and lean season. This may underpin the shortage of water in the lower riparian country, which fuels the zero-sum game in the river basin, where one player is affected by the intervention of the another player. The result from this analysis with zero-sum game perspective may be useful for reviewing transboundary water policies, basin management and development, sustainable water resource management and water sharing mechanism among countries in the transboundary river basin.
Climate changes imposed differential impacts on Bangladesh in the form of sea level rise, extreme... more Climate changes imposed differential impacts on Bangladesh in the form of sea level rise, extreme events, and variability, which has enormous economic, environmental and social cost. Such impacts are assorted across the ecosystems of the Southwest, Northwest and Central region of the country. Among the different sectors, agriculture is comparatively more vulnerable to climate change impacts. In order to reduce the climate change induced loss and damage, a series of adaptation options have been being practiced by the people at the local level for many years, but the effectiveness, profitability, and sustainability of such adaptation options are still not too well investigated or understood. From this backdrop, the study intends to identify, prioritize and evaluate the adaptation options in the agriculture of different ecosystems of Bangladesh. It is found that the economic gain of adopting rice prawn farming, replantation of rice, and saline tolerant and short duration rice varieties are much higher than the other adaption options. Through investing {\$}10 in such adaptation options, {\$}22, {\$}4, {\$}2 and {\$}2 net return will be provided, respectively. Unavailability and less affordability are impeding the promotion of some effective adaption options, which require more attention from policy makers, while further research, demonstration and capacity building of the farmers will reduce vulnerability and build resilience.
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