 |
| Titel |
Natural hazards and climate change in Dhaka: future trends, social adaptation and informal dynamics |
| VerfasserIn |
I. Thiele-Eich, T. Aßheuer, C. Simmer, B. Braun |
| Konferenz |
EGU General Assembly 2009
|
| Medientyp |
Artikel
|
| Sprache |
Englisch
|
| Digitales Dokument |
PDF |
| Erschienen |
In: GRA - Volume 11 (2009) |
| Datensatznummer |
250030388
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Zusammenfassung |
| Similar to many megacities in the world, Dhaka is regularly threatened by natural hazards.
Risks associated with floods and cyclones in particular are expected to increase in the
years to come because of global climate change and rapid urbanization. Greater
Dhaka is expected to grow from 13.5 million inhabitants in 2007 to 22 million
inhabitants by 2025. The vast majority of this growth will take place in informal
settlements. Due to the setting of Greater Dhaka in a deltaic plain, the sprawl of slums
is primarily taking place in wetlands, swamps and other flood-prone areas. Slum
dwellers and informal businesses are vulnerable, but have somehow learned to cope
with seasonal floods and developed specific adaptation strategies. An increase of
precipitation extremes and tropical cyclones, however, would put considerable stress on the
adaptability of the social and economic system. DhakaHazard, a joint research project of
the Department of Meteorology at the University of Bonn and the Department of
Geography at the University of Cologne, takes up these issues in an interdisciplinary
approach. The project, which begun in November 2008, aims to achieve two main
objectives:
To link analyses of informal social and economic adaptation strategies to models
on future climate change and weather extremes.
To estimate more accurately the future frequency and magnitude of weather
extremes and floods which are crucial for the future adaptability of informal
systems.
To fulfill these objectives, scientists at the Meteorological Institute are studying the evolution of
natural hazards in Bangladesh, while researchers at the Department of Geography are
undertaking the task of assessing these hazards from a social point of view. More specifically,
the meteorologists are identifying global and regional weather conditions resulting in
flooding of the Greater Dhaka region, while possible variations in flood-inducing weather
patterns are analyzed by evaluating their frequency and magnitude. Findings are then
applied to future global climate scenario runs to obtain a first estimate of trends for
the frequency and magnitude of weather extremes and their impact on spatial and
temporal characteristics of floods in the Greater Dhaka region. From this estimate, a
prediction method for the spatial patterns of flooding within the Dhaka area will be
developed.
The social part of the project analyzes the vulnerability and resilience of economic and
social systems within high-risk areas by utilizing methods such as e.g. quantitative
household surveys in Dhaka and qualitative expert interviews. Geographers are hoping
to
identify adaptation and recovery strategies of slum dwellers and informal
businesses (e.g. brickfields, tanneries),
analyze the role of social capital as well as formal and informal institutions for
building up resilience, and
analyze possibilities and limits of adaptation strategies under conditions of
further urban growth and climate change.
By paying attention to the important behavioral patterns of the informal sector, a
meteorological early warning system can then be developed to make better use of weather
predictions to mitigate weather-related risks for Greater Dhaka. If successful, this project
poses as an exemplary intersection of social science and natural hazards research. |
|
|
|
|
|
|