Jahangirnagar University Environmental Bulletin, Vol.

8, 1-9, 2023

Jahangirnagar University Environmental Bulletin

ISSN: 2304-3326
Contents Available at: https://www.juniv.edu/department/env

Evaluating the Problems of Embankment Management in

Bangladesh
Syed Hafizur Rahman1* and Mahfuzul Islam2
1Professor, Department of Environmental Sciences, Jahangirnagar University, Dhaka-1342, Bangladesh.
2
Undergraduate Student, Department of Environmental Sciences, Jahangirnagar University, Dhaka-
1342, Bangladesh.

Abstract
Bangladesh is the largest delta in the world, contiguous to the Bay of Bengal and occupied by around
seven hundred rivers. Nineteen districts of this country are concerned as the coastal area, which is
directly connected with the marine ecosystem. The concept of protecting the crops of this fertile land
from the water is ancient and has been practiced for many years by creating dams, barriers, and
embankments. Embankment management in this area centrally started in the Pakistan period by
constructing dams in 1960s. After the independence, Bangladesh Government took responsibility for
embankment management, and several stages have been passed in this process. The latest addition to
this journey was the water rules, 2018. This study aimed to evaluate the remaining problems and find
their possible causes in embankment management. To do this, three areas, Gaibandha Sadar, Padda
Pukur, and Koyra, were selected for the evaluation, and data was collected through FGDs, KIIs,
interviews, and case studies. Then it was analyzed to reach a suitable decision. From the study, several
gaps and problems have been popped. Among them are the lack of participation of the local people in
the management system, the autocracy of the Bangladesh Water Development Board, and the failure to
apply the water rules 2018 to form the local-level water resource management committee were
prominent. It is found that the people responsible for creating committees at the Union and Upazilla
levels were not active or concerned enough about their responsibilities on this.
Keywords: Coastal Area, Climate Change, BWDB, Local Government Institutions (LGIs).

Introduction
Bangladesh is a sub-tropical country in the north-eastern part of South Asia, where most of
the land gradually developed by the settlement of sediment that is carried by the BGM
(Brahmaputra-Ganges-Meghna) river system running through the Bengal Basin (Morgan and
McIntire, 1959). This created the largest delta in the world. The Bays of Bengal lies in the
southern part of the country, which makes a coastal belt of 47,201 Km 2 area, approximately
32% of the country, and covers 19 districts (Ahmad, 2019). Due to the geological position and
topography, though Bangladesh is a low-elevated country with a large coastal zone, the lands
are very fertile, and the environment is friendly for agriculture. For that, civilizations have
evolved in this region for a long time. The combination of an impressive fertility rate and an
exceedingly small amount of land area made Bangladesh one of the densest populated
countries in the world. Around 35 million people live in the coastal area and continue their

*Corresponding Author (hafizsr@juniv.edu)

Jahangirnagar University Environmental Bulletin Syed Hafizur Rahman and Mahfuzul Islam

livelihood depending on the coastal zone. Due to the topographical, geological, and
morphological position, the coastal zone of Bangladesh is very prone to various natural
disasters, like; cyclones, floods, salination, land erosion, and landslide. Due to the funnel
shape opening of the Bay of Bengal, this region faces cyclones almost every year from April-
May and September-December. Among them, Sidr was a significant one that caused damage
equivalent to 1.7 billion dollars, which covered 2.6% of the country's total GDP then (Saha
and Khan, 2014). Flooding (Islam and Sado, 2000) is another common disaster in these areas,
as well as rising seawater. Studies predict Another highly suffering problem of the coastal
zone is salinity intrusion.
26% rise in salinity level has been shown in this area in the last four decades, and 12 districts
of Bangladesh has already been identified as salinity-affected. The low elevation of land, low
flow of the rivers, sea level rises, shrimp cultivation, and much more are active behind this
problem (Mahmuduzzaman et al., 2014). To fight against these natural calamities, Bangladesh
Government took the initiative of constructing embankments in disaster-prone areas to save
local lives and materials from loss. It was 1960 when the first initiative was taken by the
Bangladesh Power and Water Development Authority (WAPDA). Since then, 8200
kilometers of embankment have been constructed all over Bangladesh to prevent disasters
(Schroeder, 2014). But still, due to various lacks and constraints in the embankment
management system, the embankments fail every year and cause massive damage to the
livelihoods of the local people and the country's economy.
Geomorphologically, most of Bangladesh is a low-lying area developed by the eluvium
sedimentation of around 700 rivers flown through the delta. Besides, Bangladesh occupies a
large extent of the coastal zone. Because of those, this region has widespread disasters like
flooding, storm surge, and cyclones. For years, people who cultivated these lands always tried
to protect their crops from catastrophe. The concept of building dams to protect their crops
and yields comes from them. According to the history of Bangladesh, it is seen that the
landlord, also known as the Zamindars, first built some dams in their private initiatives to
protect their lands from coastal disasters (Banglapedia, 2021). In the meantime, polder
development has been started (Saari and Rahman, 2003). In 1953, the first law was published
on embankment management, the Embankment and Drainage Act, 1952 (East Bengal Act),
under the current Pakistan Government. This law first provides an administrational system for
the whole of Bangladesh in the embankment management system (Law, 1953). Then in 1960,
the first publicly built embankment was built. Since then, more than 50 acts have been
developed to regulate the sector (Saari and Rahman, 2003). Primary legislative documents are
the Water Resources Planning Act (1992), Bangladesh National Water Policy (1999),
Bangladesh Water Act (2013), and Bangladesh Water Rule (2018). The Water Resources
Ministry has prepared several guidelines for implementing these documents.
Bangladesh Water Resources Planning Organization (WARPO) was formed in 1992 from the
Master Plan Organization (MPO) under the Water Resources Planning Act. WARPO is an
apex organization that acts under the Ministry of water resources, dealing with nationwide
water resources planning (Organization, 2020). According to Bangladesh National Water
Policy (1999), all the major water development projects, including the embankment
management system, which had a size of more than 1000 hectares, would go under the
responsibility of the Bangladesh Water Development Board (BWDB) and the projects which

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Evaluating the Problems of Embankment Management in Bangladesh

were less than 1000 hectares would go under the responsibility of the Local Government. As a
subsequence, a new act was passed in 2000, known as the Bangladesh Water Development
Board Act (2000). It clarified the structure of the Bangladesh Water Development Board and
its management processes with the embankment system. After that national water resource
council and an executive committee were formed under the Bangladesh Water Act (2013).
This ensures the involvement of various government and non-government organizations in the
embankment management system. But there were many gaps in the embankment
management. Especially in the management system, the root-level stakeholders were not
involved, and proper communication between the BWDB and the Local Government
Institutions was missing. Also, the collaboration between the NGO and GO was absent
inmany places (Rahman, 2017; Rahman et al., 2020). In 2018, Bangladesh Water Rule (2018)
was published. In this act, it was ensured that the involvement of stakeholders from every rack
of the shelf would be there by forming committees at different levels of the management
system.

According to the Bangladesh Water Rules 2018, the embankment management process will
be done under four water resource management committees. The Director General of the
Water Resources Planning Organization (WARPO) will create this management's central or
executive committee. The second type of committee will be created at the district level, where
the district commissioner will be the president of this committee. There will be 19 more
members of this committee who will represent different sectors related to water resource
management. This committee will be known as District Integrated Water Resources
Management Committee. The third type of committee will be the Upazilla Integrated Water
Resources Management Committee, created at the Upazilla level; the UNO will act as a
president here with 17 more members representing different water resource management
sectors at the Upazilla level. The fourth type of committee will be the Union Integrated Water
Resources Management Committee, created at the Union level. The union chairman will be
the president, with 12 members representing different sectors related to water resource
management at the Union level. These committees will maintain the chain of command and
grave the opinions from the root level by arranging meetings with the stakeholders. These
four committees will ensure public opinion, especially the locals' opinion on the issues, and
act as the people's representatives. The Union and Upazilla level committees will look after
the embankments and have the responsibility of repairing their embankments. So that if there
is any problem with the embankment, the local people can inform these committees very
quickly. There will be a technical committee at each level whose job will be the planning and
ensure the local people's knowledge and opinion to build a sustainable and robust
embankment. Each level of the committees will have a specific budget for any emergency
work for the embankment (Resources, 2018). The diagram of the four management
committees is shown in Bangladesh Water Rules (2018) (Figure 1). Although, according to
Bangladesh Water Rules 2018, the gaps between the GO, NGO, and the local public should
be reduced, the problems are still present in the management of embankments in Bangladesh.

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Jahangirnagar University Environmental Bulletin Syed Hafizur Rahman and Mahfuzul Islam

Figure 1: Management processes according to Bangladesh Water Rules, 2018

Objective
In the last 30 years, this country has occupied about 8200 Kilometers of embankment with
more than 9,000 hydraulic structures such as sluice gates, pumping stations, and regulators to
provide a suitable environment for agriculture by draining out the excess water caused by
flood and other natural disasters (Schroeder, 2014). Bangladesh Water Development Board
(BWDB) held the position to be in charge of these embankments (development and
management). As Bangladesh Water Development Board (BWDB) had the monopoly of
power to regulate these infrastructures, there were many problems with managing these
things. To solve this Government of Bangladesh decentralizes the power of embankment
management from BWDB to other stakeholders of the authorities in the Water Rule 2018. But
after that, the problems related to embankment management have not vanished properly.
There are still some gaps that are keeping the problems alive.

The objective of this paper was to find out the gaps in Bangladesh's embankment management
system and identify the scopes of local government institutions (LGIs) in embankment
management process. As there are laws and policies for the engagement of LGIs, but there is
still little or no engagement of the LGIs with the management process. It is another objective
to find out the reasons behind this problem.

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Evaluating the Problems of Embankment Management in Bangladesh

The ultimate goal of the work is to reduce the vulnerability of people who suffer from the
poor management of the embankment through the implementation of appropriate
embankment management policies and programs according to the central legislation.

Methodology
The research was conducted in both desk review and participatory research approaches (Table
1). In the desk review section, previous journals, articles, reports of government and non-
government organizations, seminar papers, laws, and ordinances of the government of
Bangladesh, and related documents were studied to grab a clear conception of the history of
the embankment management of the study areas. On the other hand, to identify the gaps and
problems in the embankment management system of Bangladesh, a mixture of research
techniques has been administered, such as focused group discussions (FDGs) with the local
people and representatives, Key Informant Interviews (KIIs), face to face in-depth interview
with the local stakeholders, semi-structured questionnaire interview with the officers of Local
Government Institutes (LGIs), local public representatives, and administrational
representatives. Several case studies were also conducted to understand the current situation
and its causes.

Table 1: the techniques used by respondents to fulfill the research objectives.

Tools Sampling method Types of respondents

Focused Group Purposive sampling NGO and community members
Discussion
Key Informant Purposive sampling Local people, Upazilla Parished Chairman and
Interview members, Upazilla Nirbahi Officer (UNO)
In-Depth Face-to-Face Purposive sampling The survey was conducted with the LGIs
Interview representatives, Local public representatives,
and administrational representatives.
Semi-structured Snowball sampling Local people in the study area
Questionnaire Interview

Discussion
Considering the engagements, users, and authority, the levels of the stakeholders in the
embankment management system can be divided into four categories. These are:

A. Bangladesh Water Development Board: which remains in the highest tier in this
management system, holds decision-making power.
B. Government officers: representatives of the government of Bangladesh in the local
government sectors.
C. UP members are the representatives of local people at the Upazilla or union level.
D. Local people: they are the direct users of the embankments.
Unfortunately, the truth is that this process is not followed in the practical field. In a practical
situation, the management system is not the same as it is written in the books. In reality, the
water development board holds the supreme power and authority to make and repair the dams.

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Jahangirnagar University Environmental Bulletin Syed Hafizur Rahman and Mahfuzul Islam

There are no committees as described in the law. From the knowledge of KII, FGD, and case
studies that are conducted in our research, how the embankments are managed, the problems,
and the gaps in the systems are discussed below.

Embankment Management (EM)

According to the FGD and KII of stakeholders, it is clear that the BWDB primarily does
embankment management. They do it according to the "BWDB Act 2000", where the projects
related to the rivers and coastal embankments would go under the responsibility of the
Bangladesh Water development board (Resources, 2000). According to this act, projects with
more than 1000 hectares are managed by the Bangladesh Water Development Board
(BWDB). As BWDB officers informed in their KII, there are monitoring teams for the
embankment sites conducted by the BWDB officials from the related region. They monitored
the embankment sites regularly or in an emergency call. Then if they feel the importance of
repairing the damages, they inform the higher authority of the BWDB. Then the higher
authority arranges a budget for the repair and conducts the work by the contractors who
participate and win in the tendering process. Sometimes emergency requests for repair from
the members of parliament or district executive officers are received by the BWDB.
If there is an emergency need for embankment repair, the executive engineer of the district
informs the divisional level. Then the divisional officer, with the permission of the related
board, sanctions a project for repairment. Then water development board recruits the
contractor from their regular contractors for the job repairs.

EM Problems
The major problem found in the study of embankment management is the communication gap
among the stakeholders of the total embankment system of Bangladesh. In the FGD and KII,
the local people confirm they are the first victims of the embankment's failure. When an
embankment or dam is being damaged and approaching collapse, they inform the local people
representatives, in this case, Upazilla or Union Chairman. But the Chairmen and local people
representatives are neither included in the management system that BWDB runs nor have any
authoritarian power or budget to repair the dams. When the monitoring team calls a meeting,
they only get to give their opinion directly to the BWDB officials. Other times, they pass the
information to the Upazilla Executive Officer or UNO, who then passes the news to the
higher tier, where the BWDB would grant that.
Due to this communication delay and the absence of interconnection of different levels of
stakeholders of the system, the damaged embankments cannot be repaired in time. As a result,
they fail in times of emergency. This brings enormous economic, social, and environmental
suffering to the local people who live under the radar of the danger zone.
This problem of the lack of communication is not new. Eventually, the Bangladesh Water
Rule 2018 was created to solve this problem. But at the root level, this law is not implemented
correctly. Not implementing the law in the management system is another big problem that
can be identified. The ignorance of the root-level stakeholders about the law is another issue
here. The local people and most regional representatives know they do not have any right to

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Evaluating the Problems of Embankment Management in Bangladesh

participate in the embankment management system. They don't also carry a proper knowledge
of the lower-level water resource management committees though in some cases, they belong
in them.
Some other problems have been identified related to the embankment management system.

I. There is no compensation for the affected landowners.

II. The contractors of the embankment projects change from budget to budget. The
outsider Contractors and subcontractors perform irregularities at work and do not
include the locals working. The subcontractors also do not supply the information of
work adequately.
III. Lack of research and plan to build a sustainable embankment, ignoring locals'
knowledge about the river flow and its way, and the lack of technical information to
save the embankment from river erosion.
IV. In coastal areas, unplanned shrimp cultivation near the embankment and a veku
machine to irrigate or supply the saline water in the shrimp field is also a reason for
damaging the embankment. When salt water is pumped into the shrimp field through
the embankment, it damages the embankment. So that, after a little blow of high tide or
other calamities, it breaks down.
V. The elevation of the embankments is not sufficient. So, the roads adjacent to the
embankment go underwater when the embankment fails.
VI. Interference of various political groups at the repair site of the embankment also delays
the work.
VII. The water development board does not repair or renovate the embankment unless
broken or in a dangerous stage.
VIII. There is no budget for the Union Parishad to repair the damaged embankment, and the
Union Parishad does not know anything about the central project budget.
IX. Women and children face such risks when the Embankment breaks. For example, the
women and the children of those families who lose their all due to embankment failure
face many threats.
X. Tempering the path of water flow in the neighborhood, seizing the wetlands, and filling
the rivers are other causes of overwhelming water and waterlogging at high tide. These
cause the scarcity of fresh water and increase the salinity of agricultural land. This is
hampering crop production, and people are losing their livelihoods.

Legal Disparities
We can observe that laws and regulations are already prepared, but implementation is absent.
From the KII of the different stakeholders, it is seen that none of the UP members, who are
the representatives of the Union and Upazilla levels, local representatives, know about the
water resources management committee, and neither of them cannot give the information of

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Jahangirnagar University Environmental Bulletin Syed Hafizur Rahman and Mahfuzul Islam

being a part of that committee. But in the KII of the Government, officials of the Upazilla,
which include the LGED (Local Government Engineering Department) officers and UNOs
(Upazilla Executive Officer), have informed that they know about the water resources
management committee. And they are also a member of the committee at the district level.
From this perspective, it can be identified that there is a clear gap between the district level
and the Upazilla level committee. As the Upazilla level committees are not forming, the
processes are not being continued anymore. The union-level committee is also not created due
to the absence of the Upazilla-level committee. That's why the opinions in the management
system of the embankment are not coming from the root-level stakeholders, and ultimately,
the total system fails.

Another critical issue is to be noted that embankment management is not the only
responsibility that these water resources management committees would do according to the
Bangladesh Water Rules (2018). This act, more precisely, connects different stakeholders and
brings them under the same umbrella. Therefore, until the water resources management
committees are established, the problems related to embankment management will be
contemporary.

Conclusion
The absence of participation of the local people and their opinions in the embankment
management system is still present after establishing the Bangladesh Water Rule, 2018. It is
mainly because of the absence of the water resource management committees at the Upazilla
and Union level. Because of that, the embankment management process still runs in the old
way, where the BWDB plays the autocracy role. Due to this reason, the local people and the
local public representatives cannot participate in the embankment management system
directly and efficiently. To get this situation, forming the lower tier of the water resources
management committees is necessary and should be done as soon as possible.

Besides, there can be an additional committee or program whose work will educate the root-
level stakeholders about their duties and responsibilities in these water resources management
committees.

Acknowledgment
Authors are highly acknowledged to the Campaign for Sustainable Rural Livelihood (Csrl)
and Promoting Knowledge for Accountable System (PROKAS) programme of British
Council, Bangladesh for their technical and financial support. The views expressed in this
manuscript do not necessarily represent the opinion of the British Council.

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Evaluating the Problems of Embankment Management in Bangladesh

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