The recent visit of Chief Advisor Professor Muhammad Yunus to China highlighted the importance of Chinese cooperation in river management in Bangladesh. We have no doubt about China’s progress in terms of river management technology. Bangladesh’s enthusiasm to benefit from China’s experience and technology is justified.
The process of Chinese cooperation in river management in Bangladesh began in 2016, before Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visit to Bangladesh. At that time, it was reported that China was ready to provide a loan of $11 billion under China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).
Many people were enthusiastic about taking advantage of this loan to formulate projects. From that source, a discussion began between the Bangladesh Water Development Board (PWDB) and a Chinese company called Power China. Based on that discussion, a memorandum of understanding was signed to the effect that this company would formulate a ‘Sustainable River Management Program’ covering all the major rivers of Bangladesh and giving priority to the Jamuna River.
However, the previous government tried to use the issue of Chinese cooperation in river development to hide its failure to get its fair share of the Teesta river from India. On that basis, the Power Water Development Board (PWDB) requested China to give priority to the Teesta river instead of the Yamuna river.
Accordingly, Power-China formulated the ‘Tista River Comprehensive Management and Restoration Project’. Later, it was learned that India itself had expressed its intention to implement this project. As a result, the then government was in a dilemma.
During his stay in China, the chief advisor expressed his desire to implement the Teesta project through a Chinese company. Not only that, but in a meeting with the Chinese Minister of Water Resources, he requested China to provide a 50-year master plan for Bangladesh’s rivers.
This issue deserves serious consideration because the past experience of formulating master plans for river management in Bangladesh by foreign governments or organizations is not very promising.
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In the 1950s, the International Engineering Company (IECO) of San Francisco, USA, was tasked with formulating a master plan for the management of Bangladesh’s water resources, based on the recommendations of the Krug Commission. Based on this, IECO
prepared a two-volume master plan in 1964.
The time-frame of this master plan was 20 years. But the trend of river management that was initiated in Bangladesh through the master plan has continued in Bangladesh for almost 60 years.
The approach that the IEC adopts to dealing with rivers is officially called the ‘commercial approach’. Its specific form for the delta is the ‘enclosure approach’.
The main goal of this approach is to isolate the floodplain from the riverbed. For this purpose, numerous embankments, sluice gates and other structures have been built across the country. (I have presented a detailed review of these in two recently published books. The two books are, Water Development in Bangladesh: Current Crisis and Alternative Proposals and Water Development in Bangladesh: Past Present and Future)
The results of the implementation of the IECO master plan are clear to the naked eye; the country’s river system is in disarray. Numerous rivers have disappeared, and the rest are dying. On the one hand, the riverbeds have been filled, while on the other hand, the floodplains have been degraded.
Many rivers have been completely dammed and virtually killed. One consequence of this is waterlogging, which is now spreading throughout Bangladesh’s cities and villages.
An extreme form of the belt approach is the polder, when the belt is quadrilateral. A program to build polders on the coast of Bangladesh was undertaken in the 1950s, even before the IECO master plan.
Just as we are now attracted to China for river management, earlier the attraction was to the Netherlands, where land was reclaimed from the seabed through the construction of polders and settlements were established.
There was no need for Bangladesh to reclaim land from the seabed. Despite this, the Dutch ‘polder approach’ was imposed on Bangladesh. Even though Bangladesh and the Netherlands are both located in a delta, there are more differences than similarities between them.
While the annual flow of the Ganges and Brahmaputra in Bangladesh is estimated to be 404 and 628 cubic kilometers respectively, the annual flow of the Rhine, the main river in the Netherlands, is only 75 cubic kilometers. Moreover, while the flow of the rivers in Bangladesh is highly seasonal, the flow of the Rhine is not. After all, the rivers of Bangladesh bring in about 1.15 billion tons of silt every year, while the Rhine only carries 3.4 million tons.
The main tasks of river management in Bangladesh are to deal with seasonal variations in flow and to ensure a fair distribution of sediment. Neither of these tasks is relevant for the Netherlands.
The result of this invisibility is that the silt has not reached the interior of the polders. As a result, their land elevation has gradually decreased instead of increasing and in many cases it has gone below sea level and is going further. In other words, we have pushed the country’s coast towards submergence with foreign advice.
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The two major rivers of China are the Yangtze River in the south and the Huanghe (Yellow River) in the north. The average annual flow of the Yangtze River (at the Datong survey station) is approximately 27,500 cubic meters per second (cu m). In this respect, this river is equivalent to our Brahmaputra River. The average annual flow of the Brahmaputra at Bahadurabad is approximately 22,000 cu m.
However, the flow of the Yangtze River is much less than the combined flow of the Ganges-Yamuna. The amount of silt carried by the Yangtze River is less than half of the silt carried by the Ganges-Yamuna in Bangladesh. As a result, the problem of silt management of the Yangtze River is not equivalent to that of Bangladesh.
Although the Yangtze River has seasonal variations in its flow, it is not as extreme as in Bangladesh and the soil composition of the riverbanks is different from Bangladesh. As a result, the problem of riverbank erosion is not as severe as in Bangladesh. The Yangtze is not a meandering river like the Jamuna or Teesta rivers in Bangladesh.
China has built many large dams on the Yangtze and its tributaries, including the Three Gorges Dam, which has the world’s largest hydroelectric capacity. These dams have drastically reduced the amount of silt in the downstream reaches of the Yangtze River (by 93% according to some surveys).
This has resulted in increased erosion downstream and estuaries and deltas facing degradation. Various channelization projects imposed on the Yangtze River have caused devastation to many lakes connected to the river.
The annual average flow of the northern Hwangho River is only 2,110 cusecs, less than half that of our Meghna. In the past, this river carried about 1.6 billion tons of silt.
China has built 4,850 kilometers of dams on both sides of the river (especially in the plains); as a result, the sediment has fallen and the height of the riverbed has risen to about 30 feet above the surrounding area in some places. As a result, the Huanghe is now called the ‘sky river’. Due to the construction of about 20 large dams on the river in the mountainous areas, the flow of the river no longer reaches the sea for most of the time, resulting in the degradation of the river’s estuary and delta.
It is worth noting that the length of the Yangtze and Huanghe rivers is 3,915 miles and 3,395 miles respectively. Both rivers are entirely within the borders of China. As a result, it is not possible for Bangladesh to control its rivers the way China can.
About 93 percent of Bangladesh’s river flow comes from outside its borders. In addition, only 25 and 14 percent of the Yangtze and Huanghe rivers flow in the plains, the rest in the mountainous areas. As a result, China has been able to control the flow of these rivers by building many dams in the mountainous areas. Bangladesh does not have such an opportunity.
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Like the Netherlands, the situation of China’s rivers is fundamentally different from that of Bangladesh. China has pursued a very aggressive commercial approach to rivers. In many cases, the consequences have not been good. Criticism is growing in that country.
We also see the reflection of aggressive commercialism in the master plan that China has formulated for the Teesta River in Bangladesh. The sustainability of the plan, which proposes to reduce the average width of a meandering river like the Teesta from an estimated 3,000 meters to 816 meters in one fell swoop, is questionable.
Neither Power China nor Paubo has publicly released a ‘feasibility report’ for the project. Without this essential information, it is unclear what the purpose of the recent public hearing on Power China’s Teesta plan could be.
All in all, it must be said that the situation of rivers in Bangladesh is different. For this, a different philosophy and approach are needed. What is suitable for Bangladesh is a natural and open approach to rivers and gradual stabilization of the banks through the use of indigenous technology.
Experience has shown that it is difficult for foreigners to understand the specific situation and needs of Bangladesh. In fact, Western experts have failed miserably in this regard in the past. The Chinese-made project on the Teesta indicates that it is difficult to be optimistic that any foreign company-based attempt at river management in Bangladesh will succeed.
Above all, it is a matter of regret that even after 50 years of independence, the country is still relying on foreigners for planning on basic issues like rivers, energy, education, etc. Bangladesh has come a long way in achieving economic self-reliance. When will we become self-reliant in terms of thinking and planning?
- Dr. Nazrul Islam is a former head of development research at the United Nations and a professor at the Asian Growth Research Institute.
Source: Prothom Alo
