Published on:11/11/2013

Erosion by the Jamuna River has taken a serious turn at four villages in Chinaduli union of Islampur upazila. Recently, the Jamuna river erosion threatened thousands of families at Islampur upazila in Jmalpur district. In the last month, the river erosion marked severe damage to lives and livelihoods while leaving people in danger. The badly affected unions are Kulkandi and Pathorshi. Pathorshi union has already been vanished to the river while Kulkandi is on the way to demolish.
Riverbank erosion is a perennial problem in Bangladesh. Large monsoon flow transporting extreme amounts of sediment from the Himalayan Mountains to the sea flow through the delta of Bangladesh formed by the same soils. These fine soils have no resistance to the flowing water and are easily transported and deposited. As a consequence the large rivers have quite an unpredictable behavior with the permanent risk of riverbank erosion. Riverbank erosion can exceed one kilometer per year and poses a substantial risk to floodplain dwellers. The loss of land is accompanied by a loss of infrastructure such as flood embankments, schools, hospitals, cultural and religious monuments and, of course, agricultural lands and assets.
According to BWDB It has been estimated that tens of thousands of people are displaced annually by river erosion in Bangladesh, possibly up to 100,000. From the 1970s to early the 1990s, the extent of mean annual erosion was about 3,300 hectares along both banks of the Jamuna River. During the last decade erosion along the river seems to have diminished slightly ranging from 1,000 to 2,500 hectare per year.see details