Experts from various sectors will convene to assess climate risks and enhance resilience in the Meghna river basin, shared by Bangladesh and India.
The basin supports over 50 million people, including indigenous communities, and faces challenges from climate change and industrial pollution. The event aims to address these issues through collaborative research and dialogue.
Policymakers, academia, civil society members, indigenous peoples’ organisations and researchers working on climate change would come together to understand climate change risks in the Meghna river basin and find ways to build resilience of the communities dependent on it.
The Meghna river basin is shared by Bangladesh and India and serves as a ‘biogeographical gateway’ as it is located between the Indian, Indo-Malayan and Indo-China biogeographical realms and works as a transition zone.
Stretched over an area of 82,000 square kilometres, more than 50 million people, including the Khasi, Garo and Jaintia indigenous communities, depend on the river’s ecosystem services.
At present, there is no legal agreement between India and Bangladesh on the Meghna river and the current treaty between Bangladesh and India on the Ganga river signed in 1996 does not include the Meghna river or its tributaries or the Brahmaputra river.
According to this agreement, India provides monsoon season data between June and October to assist its flood forecasting system, from points on the Ganga, Brahmaputra and Teesta, Feni and Barak rivers.
Over 50 organisations from Bangladesh and India would participate in the multi-stakeholder basin dialogues over the theme ‘Building Community and Ecosystem Resilience to Climate Change’, facilitated by the Meghna Knowledge Forum II between July 23 and July 25.
The convention will be held in collaboration with The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), in collaboration with South Asian University (New Delhi) and the Asian Institute of Technology (Bangkok).
The event aims to understand the impact of climate change faced by people residing in the Meghna basin such as irregular rainfall and temperature rise. Other impacts such as effects on agricultural productivity, forestry, fisheries and the navigation sector will also be under the scanner.
It is estimated that temperature patterns and fluctuations in the river flow will shift as a result of climate change and will negatively affect the water availability critical for drinking and irrigation needs.
Moreover, anthropogenic activities further threaten the health of the river.
A report published by International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) in 2019 noted that, “The countries of the Ganges-Brahmaputra-Meghna River Basin are increasing their industrial activities, with approximately 70 per cent of 300-500 million tons of heavy metals, solvents, toxic sludge, and other wastes being discharged untreated into the waterways.”
Despite the known impacts, there are gaps of localised data and understanding of how the impacts of climate change would impact the water availability and community livelihoods.
To fill in the gaps, the IUCN has been facilitating joint research since 2018 via the BRIDGE (Building River Dialogue and Governance) programme to enable Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) and climate-resilient development of the Meghna river basin.