Browsing by Author "Paul, Bimal Kanti"

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    Coastal Erosion and Human Perceptions of Revetment Protection in the Lower Meghna Estuary of Bangladesh
    Crawford, Thomas W.; Islam, Md Sariful; Rahman, Munshi Khaledur; Paul, Bimal Kanti; Curtis, Scott; Miah, Md. Giashuddin; Islam, Mohammad Rafiqul (MDPI, 2020-09-22)
    This study investigates coastal erosion, revetment as a shoreline protection strategy, and human perceptions of revetments in the Lower Meghna estuary of the Bangladesh where new revetments were recently constructed. Questions addressed were: (1) How do rates of shoreline change vary over the period 2011–2019? (2) Did new revetments effectively halt erosion and what were the magnitudes of erosion change? (3) How have erosion rates changed for shorelines within 1 km of revetments, and (4) How do households perceive revetments? High-resolution Planet Lab imagery was used to quantify shoreline change rates. Analysis of household survey data assessed human perceptions of the revetment’s desirability and efficacy. Results revealed high rates of erosion for 2011–2019 with declining erosion after 2013. New revetments effectively halted erosion for protected shorelines. Significant spatial trends for erosion rates existed for shorelines adjacent to revetments. Survey respondents overwhelmingly had positive attitudes about a desire for revetment protection; however, upstream respondents expressed a strong majority perception that revetment acts to make erosion worse. Highlights of the research include integration of remote sensing with social science methods, the timing of the social survey shortly after revetment construction, and results showing significant erosion change upstream and downstream of new revetments.
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    Household Migration and Intentions for Future Migration in the Climate Change Vulnerable Lower Meghna Estuary of Coastal Bangladesh
    Paul, Bimal Kanti; Rahman, Munshi Khaledur; Lu, Max; Crawford, Thomas W. (MDPI, 2022-04-14)
    Coastal residents of Bangladesh are now confronted with the increased incidence, variability, and severity of weather-related hazards and disasters due to climate change-induced sea level rise (SLR). Many researchers hold the view that as a consequence residents of such area have either already migrated to inland locations or intend to so in the near future. We examine the migration of households following a flash flood event that took place in August 2020 and address intentions for future migration in the Lower Meghna Estuary of coastal Bangladesh. The data obtained for this study include 310 household surveys, field observations, and informal discussions with respondents and local people. Based on the analysis of the field data, this empirical research found one household migrated to other district within one year after the event. When the respondents were asked about their future migration intensions, only a tiny proportion, namely 21 (6.77%) households, likely will leave the study area to settle in other districts while the remaining 289 households likely will stay in the Lakshmipur district. This finding challenges the existing narratives about vulnerability to environmentally induced migration. Moreover, it provides evidence of non-migration, which is a new as well as thriving area of investigation in relation to coastal Bangladesh.
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    A Hydroclimatological Analysis of Precipitation in the Ganges–Brahmaputra–Meghna River Basin
    Curtis, Scott; Crawford, Thomas W.; Rahman, Munshi Khaledur; Paul, Bimal Kanti; Miah, Md. Giashuddin; Islam, Md Sariful; Patel, Mohin (MDPI, 2018-09-29)
    Understanding seasonal precipitation input into river basins is important for linking large-scale climate drivers with societal water resources and the occurrence of hydrologic hazards such as floods and riverbank erosion. Using satellite data at 0.25-degree resolution, spatial patterns of monsoon (June-July-August-September) precipitation variability between 1983 and 2015 within the Ganges–Brahmaputra–Meghna (GBM) river basin are analyzed with Principal Component (PC) analysis and the first three modes (PC1, PC2 and PC3) are related to global atmospheric-oceanic fields. PC1 explains 88.7% of the variance in monsoonal precipitation and resembles climatology with the center of action over Bangladesh. The eigenvector coefficients show a downward trend consistent with studies reporting a recent decline in monsoon rainfall, but little interannual variability. PC2 explains 2.9% of the variance and shows rainfall maxima to the far western and eastern portions of the basin. PC2 has an apparent decadal cycle and surface and upper-air atmospheric height fields suggest the pattern could be forced by tropical South Atlantic heating and a Rossby wave train stemming from the North Atlantic, consistent with previous studies. Finally, PC3 explains 1.5% of the variance and has high spatial variability. The distribution of precipitation is somewhat zonal, with highest values at the southern border and at the Himalayan ridge. There is strong interannual variability associated with PC3, related to the El Nino/Southern Oscillation (ENSO). Next, we perform a hydroclimatological downscaling, as precipitation attributed to the three PCs was averaged over the Pfafstetter level-04 sub-basins obtained from the World Wildlife Fund (Gland, Switzerland). While PC1 was the principal contributor of rainfall for all sub-basins, PC2 contributed the most to rainfall in the western Ganges sub-basin (4524) and PC3 contributed the most to the rainfall in the northern Brahmaputra (4529). Monsoon rainfall within these two sub-basins were the only ones to show a significant relationship (negative) with ENSO, whereas four of the eight sub-basins had a significant relationship (positive) with sea surface temperature (SST) anomalies in the tropical South Atlantic. This work demonstrates a geographic dependence on climate teleconnections in the GBM that deserves further study.