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Climate change is now very much real in Bangladesh as we have been witnessing increasing incidents of natural disasters such as cyclones and floods. This year's flood has inundated more than one-third of the country and it is feared that around 75 lakh people would be affected. Millions of people could also become climate refugees, losing their homes because of the projected sea level rise due to climate change. Given the situation, what kind of housing is needed or would be sustainable in the flood-prone and coastal areas?
One thing that needs to be kept in mind is that floods in northern Bangladesh are not always directly connected to climate change. Quite often, the cause is misregulating the natural flow by our neighbouring country. That doesn't, however, mean that we're not vulnerable to climate change. Also, housing cannot be viewed as a singular action. We need a multidisciplinary, holistic approach to the crisis anticipated due to climate change.
The first step to address the climate crisis would be to accept water as an integral part of our future. As such, we need to learn to use and manage it to our advantage and learn to live with it. Ours is a waterscape and any line we drew to define water's boundary has failed miserably for decades. We are located on the Ganges estuary and two-thirds of our land mass is created by progradation into the sea. So, what we consider land was historically part of the sea. In addition, we are climatically in the subtropical region where monsoon is predominant. So, our perception of a land-based country must go through a process of reorientation. There is no example in the world for us to follow. We have to create our own examples.
With sea level rise, we can anticipate unfamiliar occurrences and changes. As such, our investigations need to focus on living with water. The positive side of our story is that we are resilient as a nation and we can adapt and appropriate. As such, our research must focus on amphibious structure, mobile structure for both living and farming.
You have recently exhibited, at the Sharjah Architecture Triennial, lightweight houses made from locally sourced materials that perch on stilts and can be moved when the waters rise. Tell us more about your research on such houses. Also, as these houses are easy to assemble and disassemble, can these be built at an affordable price for the coastal communities?
For the Sharjah Architecture Triennial, we were commissioned to research the rights of future generations in the dynamic landscape of the tide-dominated Ganges Delta. We focused on Haimchar in the lower Meghna where the delta is active. Our multidisciplinary team included architects, geographer, landscape architect and historian, and the objective was to have a holistic understanding of the phenomena of erosion and accretion. Our investigation also looked into Bengal Tenancy Act imposed by the British colonial rule on a dynamic riverine delta in order to collect revenue from the local inhabitants through a cadastral subdivision known as the CS map. This saw an imposition of a practice of dry culture on the wet culture of the Bengal Delta. We talked to local inhabitants and documented their stories, some of whom left Haimchar as landless migrants to Dhaka. We will see many such climate migrants moving to cities for opportunity in the years to come.