Bangladesh - Geography & environment
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Photo: Shafiqul Alam/Oxfam |
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Much of the land was formed from silt brought by the three great
rivers (the Ganges, the Brahmaputra, and the Meghna). This kind
of land is called a delta.
Floods are a fact of life in Bangladesh. If you’ve ever seen
the country on TV, it’s almost certain that you’ve seen
people wading waist-deep through water. Floods themselves are not
the problem, though. Some flooding is essential to water the country’s
main crops: rice and jute - (jute provides the fibre used to make
carpets and sacking).
Problems occur when there is unusually high rainfall, or when the
rivers become exceptionally full, leading to extra-high flood levels.
Surviving the floods depends on having early-warning systems, on
building houses on stilts, above high-water level, and on having
flood shelters (which are raised platforms made of earth).
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