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Guwahati, Aug. 22: Scientists from India and Bangladesh have joined hands for an integrated understanding of the Brahmaputra and how river systems affect lives of people under an International Union for Conservation of Nature project.
The project, Ecosystems for Life: A Bangladesh-India Initiative, is a civil society-led multi-stakeholder dialogue process to promote better understanding of the management of natural resources in both the countries.
A project official said Bangladesh and India have some of the most fascinating riverine systems in the world, most of which flow into the Bay of Bengal.
Draining an area of millions of square kilometres, these rivers impact the lives of more than half a billion people in the region. They are inseparable from history and legends of the region and have been a critical source of livelihood for people who use them for fishing, agriculture, and other related activities, the official said.
The Brahmaputra traverses 1,625km in China and 918km in India, before flowing 337km through Bangladesh and emptying into the Bay of Bengal.
A consultation was held in Kathmandu on August 3 and 4 to introduce the experts, researchers and authors from Bangladesh and India, and to facilitate the preparation of joint approach and methodology for the project.
Partha Das of Aaranyak, who is associated with the project, said they would take up study of chars (riverine silt islands) in Morigaon district under the theme of environmental security and ecosystem services of the project. Chars have developed over a number of years in the channels of the Brahmaputra as a natural process.
We will identify ecosystem service providers like biodiversity, forest, agriculture and how it has helped people to adapt in a challenging environment. Socio-economic study of the people living in the chars will be carried out, Das said, adding that those chars would be studied where settlements are a decade old.
A reconnaissance survey will be done in Morigaon after which two chars will be identified for study. Similarly, scientists in Bangladesh will study chars in Brahmaputra (known as Jamuna) under the same methodology and objectives.
We can learn about chars in Bangladesh and then bring the best features, he said.
The themes of the project are food security, water productivity and poverty, impacts of climate change, environmental security, biodiversity conservation and inland navigation. Inland navigation will study the cost-benefits of using river-based transportation as against other cross-country transportation systems.
The project document said though there have been efforts at understanding issues of the river basins in India and Bangladesh by means of sharing scientific information between research and policy institutions and governments but a multi-stakeholder dialogue approach, however, in mapping issues at the basin levels had not been initiated.
It is envisaged that such an initiative with the participation of civil society can help strengthen the understanding of issues and contribute to better management of natural resources, it said.
Indo-Bangla study on Brahmaputra
The project, Ecosystems for Life: A Bangladesh-India Initiative, is a civil society-led multi-stakeholder dialogue process to promote better understanding of the management of natural resources in both the countries.
A project official said Bangladesh and India have some of the most fascinating riverine systems in the world, most of which flow into the Bay of Bengal.
Draining an area of millions of square kilometres, these rivers impact the lives of more than half a billion people in the region. They are inseparable from history and legends of the region and have been a critical source of livelihood for people who use them for fishing, agriculture, and other related activities, the official said.
The Brahmaputra traverses 1,625km in China and 918km in India, before flowing 337km through Bangladesh and emptying into the Bay of Bengal.
A consultation was held in Kathmandu on August 3 and 4 to introduce the experts, researchers and authors from Bangladesh and India, and to facilitate the preparation of joint approach and methodology for the project.
Partha Das of Aaranyak, who is associated with the project, said they would take up study of chars (riverine silt islands) in Morigaon district under the theme of environmental security and ecosystem services of the project. Chars have developed over a number of years in the channels of the Brahmaputra as a natural process.
We will identify ecosystem service providers like biodiversity, forest, agriculture and how it has helped people to adapt in a challenging environment. Socio-economic study of the people living in the chars will be carried out, Das said, adding that those chars would be studied where settlements are a decade old.
A reconnaissance survey will be done in Morigaon after which two chars will be identified for study. Similarly, scientists in Bangladesh will study chars in Brahmaputra (known as Jamuna) under the same methodology and objectives.
We can learn about chars in Bangladesh and then bring the best features, he said.
The themes of the project are food security, water productivity and poverty, impacts of climate change, environmental security, biodiversity conservation and inland navigation. Inland navigation will study the cost-benefits of using river-based transportation as against other cross-country transportation systems.
The project document said though there have been efforts at understanding issues of the river basins in India and Bangladesh by means of sharing scientific information between research and policy institutions and governments but a multi-stakeholder dialogue approach, however, in mapping issues at the basin levels had not been initiated.
It is envisaged that such an initiative with the participation of civil society can help strengthen the understanding of issues and contribute to better management of natural resources, it said.
Indo-Bangla study on Brahmaputra
