Bangladesh is highly vulnerable to natural disaster like salinity intrusion, cyclonic storm surge, erosion and sea level rise. BWDB constructed 139 polders to protect the agriculture lands from salinity intrusion, improve the livelihood of the coastal people and to restore environmental degradation;

The first major project taken up was the Coastal Embankment Project (CEP) implemented during the 1960’s and early 1970’s. The overall project development objective of the current Coastal Embankment Improvement Project Phase-1 is to increase the resilience of the coastal population to natural disasters and climate change. More specifically, the project aims at: reducing the loss of assets, crops and livestock, reducing the time of recovery after natural disasters and improving agricultural production by reducing saline water intrusion which improves the Government of Bangladesh’s capacity to respond promptly and effectively to a natural disaster. Ongoing works for improvement of embankments have already been proven beneficial in fields such as flood protection, agricultural production and livelihood improvement.

Period of involvement of Delta Context: May 2020 ongoing