Publication:
Economic of Adaptation to Climate Change : Bangladesh, Volume 1. Main Report

Loading...
Thumbnail Image
Files in English
English PDF (6.25 MB)
1,920 downloads
English Text (436.26 KB)
134 downloads
Published
2010
ISSN
Date
2013-03-21
Author(s)
Editor(s)
Abstract
Bangladesh is one of the most vulnerable countries in the world to climate risks. Two-thirds of the nation is less than 5 meters above sea level and is susceptible to river and rainwater flooding, particularly during the monsoon. The Bangladesh Climate Change Strategy and Action Plan (BCCSAP), adopted by the government of Bangladesh in 2009, seek to guide activities and programs related to climate change in Bangladesh. Until the past few years, climatic risks have been poorly reflected in national policies and programs Bangladesh. The objective of this study is to help decision makers in Bangladesh to better understand and assess the risks posed by climate change and to better design strategies to adapt to climate change. The study takes as its starting point the BCCSAP. It builds upon and strengthens the analytical models and quantitative assessment tools already in use in Bangladesh in support of the research and knowledge management theme of BCCSAP. The scope of this study is more limited than the BCCSAP, so the reported costs represent a lower bound on the total adaptation costs in Bangladesh. The study was developed in four discrete and somewhat independent components with varying degrees of analytical depth and quantification.
Link to Data Set
Citation
World Bank. 2010. Economic of Adaptation to Climate Change : Bangladesh, Volume 1. Main Report. © World Bank. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/12837 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.
Digital Object Identifier
Associated URLs
Associated content
Report Series
Other publications in this report series
Journal
Journal Volume
Journal Issue

Related items

Showing items related by metadata.

  • Publication
    The Cost of Adapting to Extreme Weather Events in a Changing Climate
    (World Bank, Dhaka, 2011-12) World Bank
    Bangladesh is one of the most climate vulnerable countries in the world. Situated in the delta of the Ganges, Brahmaputra, and Meghna (GBM) rivers, the country is exposed to a range of river and rainwater flood hazards due to climate variability, the timing, location, and extent of which depend on precipitation in the entire GBM basin. The Government of Bangladesh is fully committed to global climate-change advocacy and action, having already invested heavily in adaptation measures and policies. In recent decades, the government has invested more than US$10 billion to protect its population and assets in the floodplains. Given the uncertain magnitude and timing of the added risks from climate change, it is essential to identify the costs of climate proofing Bangladesh's critical infrastructure from intensified monsoon floods and cyclonic storm surges. Previously, few if any detailed studies have been developed on the costs of climate-proofing the country's infrastructure assets from inland monsoon floods and cyclones. Most analytical work to date has been confined to case studies, with relatively limited sets of locations, impacts, and adaptation measures. This study aims to fill that knowledge gap by providing detailed vulnerable population estimates and estimates of the incremental costs of asset adaptation out to the year 2050. It is part of a larger World Bank-supported study, entitled Economics of Adaptation to Climate Change (EACC), funded by the governments of the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, and Switzerland.
  • Publication
    Building Resilience : Integrating Climate and Disaster Risk into Development
    (Washington, DC, 2013-11) World Bank
    This report presents the World Bank Group's experience in climate and disaster resilient development and contends that it is essential to eliminate extreme poverty and achieve shared prosperity by 2030. The report argues for closer collaboration between the climate resilience and disaster risk management communities through the incorporation of climate and disaster resilience into broader development processes. Selected case studies are used to illustrate promising approaches, lessons learned, and remaining challenges all in contribution to the loss and damage discussions under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). The introduction provides an overview of the UNFCCC and also introduces key concepts and definitions relevant to climate and disaster resilient development. Section two describes the impacts of globally increasing weather-related disasters in recent decades. Section three summarizes how the World Bank Group's goals to end extreme poverty and boost shared prosperity are expected to be affected by rising disaster losses in a changing climate. Section four discusses the issue of attribution in weather-related disasters, and the additional start-up costs involved in climate and disaster resilient development. Section five builds upon the processes and instruments developed by the climate resilience and the disaster risk management communities of practice to provide some early lessons learned in this increasingly merging field. Section six highlights case studies and emerging good practices in climate and disaster resilient development. Section seven concludes the report, summarizing key lessons learned and identifying potential gaps and avenues for future work.
  • Publication
    Economics of Adaptation to Climate Change : Samoa
    (Washington, DC, 2010) World Bank
    Over the last two decades Samoa has suffered major damage from two cyclones in 1990-91, minor damage from a third cyclone in 2004, and an earthquake tsunami in 2009. Changes in the scale and impact of these types of natural disasters are likely to be important consequences of climate change for the country because the increases in sea level and in average sea surface temperatures will increase theintensity and damage from major storms. Other potential impacts are linked to changes in the weather patterns associated with El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) events. The primary concern focuses on the impact on agriculture, especially in periods of lower precipitation following strong El Niño episodes.This study examines the consequences of an increase in average temperatures of up to 1°C by 2050 and up to 2.75°C by 2100 for the frequency and intensity of major cyclones that hit the islands. Estimates of the economic damage caused by storms in the past have been used to calibrate a damage function that yields an estimated increase in the expected value of economic damage as the peak wind speeds for storms with return periods of 10, 50, or 100 years rise over time. In this framework the key element of adaptation is to ensure that buildings and other assets are designed to standards that enable them to cope with the greater wind stresses and more intense precipitation associated with worse storms.
  • Publication
    Climate and Disaster Resilience : The Role for Community-Driven Development
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2014-02-01) Arnold, Margaret; Mearns, Robin; Oshima, Kaori; Prasad, Vivek
    This paper is part of a larger effort to document, assess, and promote scalable models and approaches to empower poor communities to manage a climate and disaster risk agenda in support of their development goals and to identify practical ways of getting climate and disaster risk financing directly to the ground level where impacts are felt. Social funds, social protection systems and safety nets, community-driven development (CDD) projects, livelihoods-support and related operational platforms can serve as useful vehicles for promoting community-level resilience to disaster and climate risk. This paper examines the World Bank's Community-Driven Development (CDD) portfolio to assess experience to date and to explore the potential for building the resilience of vulnerable communities to climate and disaster risk through CDD programs. It aims to be useful to both the Climate Change Adaptation and Disaster Risk Management practitioner as well as the CDD practitioner. The paper assesses the scale of climate and disaster resilience support provided through CDD projects from 2001-11 and characterizes the forms of support provided. For the climate change adaption and disaster risk management (DRM) practitioner, it discusses the characteristics of a CDD approach and how they lend themselves to building local-level climate resilience. For the CDD practitioner, the paper describes the types of activities that support resilience building and explores future directions for CDD to become a more effective vehicle for reducing climate and disaster risk.
  • Publication
    A Workbook on Planning for Urban Resilience in the Face of Disasters : Adapting Experiences from Vietnam’s Cities to Other Cities
    (World Bank, 2012-01-26) Shah, Fatima; Ranghieri, Federica
    This workbook is intended to help policy makers in developing countries plan for a safer future in urban areas in the face of natural disasters and the consequences of climate change. It is based on the experiences of three cities in Vietnam, Can Tho, Dong Hoi, and Hanoi, that worked with international and local experts under World Bank supervision to develop local resilience action plans (LRAPs) in 2009-10. An LRAP is a detailed planning document that reflects local concerns and priorities based on the experiences of the past and projections for the future. It is not a wish list of projects that may never be completed because they are too costly or lack political support. Rather, it should be a realistic document that describes and establishes priorities for specific steps that can be undertaken in the near term to adapt to both climate related and other hazards. Regardless of their size, location, political orientation, or technical capacity, other cities can learn from the experiences of these pilot cities to develop their own LRAPs. The purpose of this workbook is to adapt the initial experiences of Can Tho, Dong Hoi, and Hanoi to benefit the national government and other communities in Vietnam and beyond. Indeed, the process described in this workbook was later adopted in the cities of Iloilo, the Philippines; Ningbo, China; and Yogyakarta, Indonesia, and the concluding chapter of this workbook draws on some of the lessons learned in these cities. However, the workbook, while generalizable to other contexts, largely reflects the Vietnamese experience.

Users also downloaded

Showing related downloaded files

  • Publication
    Improving Lead Time for Tropical Cyclone Forecasting
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2018) World Bank
    Bangladesh is one of the most densely populated countries in the world. Owing to its low-lying topography, dense river network, location, and climate, it is exposed to a range of water and climate-related hazards. Tropical cyclones are among the most severe of these hazards. A key focus for improving disaster preparedness and early warning systems in Bangladesh is improved lead times for tropical cyclone forecasting including the quality and skill of the forecast. At present, the lead time for tropical cyclone forecast used by the Bangladesh Meteorological Department (BMD), the main government agency responsible for issuing forecasts for tropical cyclone and storm surges, is three days. If lead times of 10 to 15 days with relatively high accuracy are possible, as the European Centre for Medium-Range Forecasting (ECMWF) suggests, why is it not being done in Bangladesh and what can be done to improve the forecast lead time? This question motivated the writing of this paper. Critical to extending the lead times for forecasting is a better understanding of the factors that limit increasing the lead time of current forecasts. This book is arranged as follows: Chapter 1 gives description of the background and rationale for the report; Chapter 2 describes current global operational practices for forecasting tropical cyclones and storm surges, including practices at other national agencies; Chapter 3 assesses the extent to which Bangladesh uses international and regional operational practices and the technical and governance issues that limit their use; and Chapter 4 provides a summary and recommendations.
  • Publication
    Mangroves as Protection from Storm Surges in a Changing Climate
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2016-03) Blankespoor, Brian; Dasgupta, Susmita; Lange, Glenn-Marie
    Adaptation to climate change includes addressing sea level rise and increased storm surges in many coastal areas. Mangroves can substantially reduce the vulnerability of the adjacent coastal land from inundation and erosion. However, climate change poses a large threat to mangroves. This paper quantifies the coastal protection provided by mangroves for 42 developing countries in the current climate, and a future climate change scenario with a one-meter sea level rise and 10 percent intensification of storms. The benefits of the coastal protection provided by mangroves are measured in terms of population and gross domestic product at a reduced risk from inundation; the loss of benefits under climate change is measured as the increased population and gross domestic product at risk. The findings demonstrate that although sea level rise and increased storm intensity would increase storm surge areas and the amounts of built resources at risk, the greatest impact is the expected loss of mangroves. Under current climate and mangrove coverage, 3.5 million people and roughly $400 million in gross domestic product of are at risk. In the future climate change scenario, the vulnerable population and gross domestic product at risk would increase by 103 and 233 percent, respectively. The greatest risk is in East Asia, especially in Indonesia, the Philippines, and Myanmar.
  • Publication
    The Bangladesh Delta
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2021-01-25) Pakulski, Ingrid; Laroche, Virginie; Kazi, Swarna; Shawky, Ahmed; Khaleduzzaman, A.T.M.; Urrutia, Ignacio; van Ledden, Mathijs; Browder, Greg; Engle, Nathan
    This case study report discusses current development strategy for the Bangladesh Delta, which reflects an integrated approach to disaster risk management and water resources management. In this context, special attention is given to the Bangladesh Delta Plan 2100 and the role of the World Bank in Bangladesh’s transition toward sustainable, climate-resilient development. The report goes over key building blocks of the government’s current delta management and highlights some aspects of the Bangladesh Delta Plan 2100 that may also be relevant to other deltas.
  • Publication
    Learning from Disaster Response and Public Health Emergencies
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2020-11) Mohammed-Roberts, Rianna; Ajumobi, Oluwayemisi Busola; Guzman, Armando
    This study analyzes responses to past natural disasters in four countries in South Asia - Bangladesh, Bhutan, Nepal, and Pakistan. Of 178 hazardous events reported in the four countries during the 10 years covered by this study (2009-19), 126 were classified as disasters and used for the in-depth analysis. The analysis revealed that countries have multi-hazard preparedness and response capacities in place, albeit to varying degrees, in areas such as early warning and surveillance systems, emergency operations centers, and whole-of-society approaches to disaster preparedness, response, and recovery. Notwithstanding, the analysis also revealed gaps across each country in their capacity to detect, prepare for, respond to, and recover from hazard-induced disasters, including public health emergencies. To address these gaps, the paper offers recommendations for improving capacities and resilience to disasters. Recent infectious disease outbreaks, including the ongoing global Coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, have demonstrated the critical importance of comprehensive disaster risk management systems, which include resilient health systems, in reducing exposure and vulnerabilities to hazards, with an overarching aim of safeguarding national and global health security. To ensure sustainability, this calls for, amongst others, a holistic approach to resilience that incorporates public health, disaster risk, and climate change considerations; the integration of community-based disaster risk reduction programs into routine public health service delivery functions; an enhanced and expanded focus on improving multi-hazard preparedness; and the prioritization and institutionalization of after action reviews, as a means of ensuring that corrective actions from past public health events are properly considered.
  • Publication
    Digital Africa
    (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2023-03-13) Begazo, Tania; Dutz, Mark Andrew; Blimpo, Moussa
    All African countries need better and more jobs for their growing populations. "Digital Africa: Technological Transformation for Jobs" shows that broader use of productivity-enhancing, digital technologies by enterprises and households is imperative to generate such jobs, including for lower-skilled people. At the same time, it can support not only countries’ short-term objective of postpandemic economic recovery but also their vision of economic transformation with more inclusive growth. These outcomes are not automatic, however. Mobile internet availability has increased throughout the continent in recent years, but Africa’s uptake gap is the highest in the world. Areas with at least 3G mobile internet service now cover 84 percent of Africa’s population, but only 22 percent uses such services. And the average African business lags in the use of smartphones and computers as well as more sophisticated digital technologies that catalyze further productivity gains. Two issues explain the usage gap: affordability of these new technologies and willingness to use them. For the 40 percent of Africans below the extreme poverty line, mobile data plans alone would cost one-third of their incomes—in addition to the price of access devices, apps, and electricity. Data plans for small- and medium-size businesses are also more expensive than in other regions. Moreover, shortcomings in the quality of internet services—and in the supply of attractive, skills-appropriate apps that promote entrepreneurship and raise earnings—dampen people’s willingness to use them. For those countries already using these technologies, the development payoffs are significant. New empirical studies for this report add to the rapidly growing evidence that mobile internet availability directly raises enterprise productivity, increases jobs, and reduces poverty throughout Africa. To realize these and other benefits more widely, Africa’s countries must implement complementary and mutually reinforcing policies to strengthen both consumers’ ability to pay and willingness to use digital technologies. These interventions must prioritize productive use to generate large numbers of inclusive jobs in a region poised to benefit from a massive, youthful workforce—one projected to become the world’s largest by the end of this century.