Name of the Project
Coastal Embankment Improvement Project Phase-2
Client/Funding
Bangladesh Water Development Board/World Bank/Royal HaskoningDHV
Country
BANGLADESH
Partners
Royal HaskoningDHV, Northwest Hydraulic Consultants, Inros Lackner, Consultants Development Design Consultants (DDC), Strategic Planning and Management Consultants (SPMC), Knowledge Management Consultants (KMC) and Center for Environmental and Geographic Information Services (CEGIS)
Project Information
Description
Bangladesh is considered one of the most disaster-prone and climate vulnerable countries in the world, with the coastal zone being unceasingly influenced by river system’s fluctuations as well as coastal processes such as tidal propagation and salinity intrusion and coastal threats such as cyclone events. The Bangladesh’s Government progress to reduce the vulnerabilities of the coastal zone communities, includes construction of 139 polders, and has been outstanding during the last 60 years. For the past 45-50 years, polders have significantly reduced the vulnerability to natural disasters and have created economic opportunities for the coastal communities, ensuring enhanced agricultural production. Nevertheless, throughout the last years, the effectiveness of the polders in protecting the land and people within the polders, in many cases has been compromised by damages caused from severe cyclones, shifting coastal and river bank lines, deterioration due to frequent storm surges. The prevailing vulnerability of the coastal zone to direct and indirect coastal threats, highlights the urgency to rehabilitate the damaged infrastructure as well as improve their resistance to climate change threats.
When the Polder concept was introduced, Polders have been designed to protect only against tidal flooding. Recently, and by taking projections of climate change into consideration, the Polder design has been upgraded by including additional protection measures against storm surges and cyclone flooding. The upgraded design was introduced and is currently being implemented under the Coastal Embankment Improvement Program (CEIP-1). In 2013, the Coastal Embankment Improvement Project (CEIP-1) has initiated where 17 priority Polders have been selected for feasibility and implementation of rehabilitation and improvements.
Following CEIP-1, within Phase-2 of CEIP is intended to access the remaining 122 polders and select a next batch of 13 polders for implementing infrastructure improvement works.
The main objective of the Consultancy Services is to support Government of Bangladesh’s Water Development Board (BWDB) in preparation of comprehensive coastal embankment improvement program and implementation of the following phases of CEIP. The Consultancy Services will be carried out with a detailed feasibility study according to the international standards, which will form the basis for project appraisal by the World Bank and the Government of Bangladesh and will also cover the detailed design and bidding documents of a batch of works to be implemented under the next phase of CEIP. During feasibility, our Team will select a batch of polders which must be urgently improved, will carry out engineering surveys, will perform hydraulic modelling and morphological analysis, social, economic and environmental assessments, resettlement and land acquisition studies, which will all lead to development of well thought of detailed designs. Detailed designs refer to, amongst others, embankments, slope protection works, bank protection works, drainage and flushing sluices. Stakeholder consultations are crucial for development of effective designs and will be an indispensable part of the project.
Period of involvement of Delta Context: August 2021 – ongoing