Syful Islam
22 March 2012
SciDev.net
[DHAKA] Researchers in the United States say agricultural waste from coconut and mango farming could generate significant amounts of off-grid electricity for rural communities in South and South-East Asia.
Many food crops have a tough, inedible part which cannot be used to feed livestock or fertilise fields. Examples of this material — known as 'endocarp' — include coconut, almond and pistachio shells, and the stones of mangoes, olives, plums, apricots and cherries.
Endocarp is high in a chemical compound known as lignin. High-lignin products can be heated to produce an energy-rich gas that can be used to generate electricity.
The researchers identified high-endocarp-producing regions of the world – and noted that coconut and mango agriculture account for 72 per cent of total global endocarp production. Coconut production alone accounted for 55 per cent.
Most coconut endocarp comes from South and South-East Asian countries, including Bangladesh, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Thailand, and Vietnam.
They then overlaid these findings with energy consumption data to identify communities with little access to electricity, who could benefit from endocarp-based energy.
"We noticed that production was unevenly distributed around the globe, which could make a very significant contribution to the energy budget in some countries like Sri Lanka, Indonesia, and the Philippines, [as well as] regions of India," Tom Shearin, co-author and a systems analyst at University of Kentucky, United States, told SciDev.Net.
Writing in the Proceedings of the National Academies of Sciences (February 21), the researchers said endocarp bioenergy could meet up to 30 per cent of total energy needs in Sri Lanka, 25 per cent in the Philippines, 13 per cent in Indonesia, and 3 per cent in India.
Shearin said endocarp was preferable to crop-based biofuels as it had no value as a food item. "Its exploitation as energy source does not compete with food production," he said.
Wais Kabir, executive chairman of the Bangladesh Agriculture Research Institute, told SciDev.Net that most of the country's agricultural waste, including non-edible by-products, was already used to generate bioenergy.
"I don't think that supply of adequate volumes of coconut shell, [for example] to run a power plant, is possible at this stage until we go for its production in a planned way," he said.
The researchers acknowledged that efforts to scale up infrastructure to deliver decentralised bio-energy in developing countries would face economic, technical and social challenges.
Advocates of an endocarp-based energy sector would also have to persuade investors that it would be financially viable.
Abser Kamal, managing director of Grameen Shakti, a renewable energy firm in Bangladesh, said: "We have to check if these are cost-effective or not".
Islam Sharif, CEO of the Infrastructure Development Company Limited (IDCOL), a state-run renewable energy financing firm in Bangladesh, said IDCO would encourage investment in endocarp-based energy production if it was found to be financially viable.
"Bangladesh needs more energy sources to meet its power needs," Sharif told SciDev.Net.
http://www.scidev.net/en/climate-change-and-energy/renewable-energy/news/coconut-and-mango-waste-could-help-power-asia.html
Sunday, March 25, 2012
Thursday, March 8, 2012
Scientists identify genetic vulnerability to arsenic-related cancers
Syful Islam
7 March 2012 | SciDev.net
[DHAKA] People at greater risk of developing debilitating or fatal diseases related to arsenic exposure could be prioritised for treatment, following a study by Bangladeshi and US researchers.
Exposure to arsenic through contaminated drinking water is a major public health issue affecting millions of people, mostly in South Asia.
A previous study had linked as many as one in five deaths in Bangladesh to arsenic exposure, and the WHO has called the phenomenon "the largest mass poisoning" in history.
The new study — published in PLoS Genetics last month (23 February) — looked at why some people are more susceptible to arsenic poisoning, with a view to establishing whether there is a genetic basis to their susceptibility.
Researchers studied the entire genomes of 3,000 people in Bangladesh and found that those who developed arsenic-related skin lesions shared a common area of their genomes. Such lesions are an indicator of overall susceptibility to other arsenic-related diseases.
The researchers said their findings suggested that up to a third of the Bangladeshi population carries the genetic variation.
"The precise risk estimates are being investigated," said lead author Habibul Ahsan, an epidemiology professor at the University of Chicago, United States.
Ahsan told SciDev.Net that the discovery could inform the design of targeted screening programmes to identify those most at risk of developing arsenic-related illness.
"Since millions of exposed people can't realistically be treated, our findings will help identify susceptible sub-groups that can be provided with specific medical treatments," Ahsan said.
At present, he said, people with the genetic disposition have no alternative but to avoid contaminated water, although he acknowledged this was not always possible.
But he added that a range of treatments are being investigated, including low-cost therapies using vitamin E, selenium and folic acid, all of which are in clinical trials.
Once treatments become available, Ahsan said, those with the genetic susceptibility could be prioritised for treatment.
"We know from Chile and Taiwan that the risk of arsenic-related cancers and death remains high for the rest of [the lives of arsenic-affected people] — even after the exposure [risk] is removed by the provision of safe water," he said.
The researchers plan further large-scale studies, with a view to persuading the Bangladeshi government to engage more actively with the issue.
"This will help our doctors in curative and preventive management of arsenic-exposed patients," said Sudhir Kumar Ghosh, superintendent engineer at the Department of Public Health Engineering, in Bangladesh.
http://www.scidev.net/en/health/genomics/news/scientists-identify-genetic-vulnerability-to-arsenic-related-cancers.html
7 March 2012 | SciDev.net
[DHAKA] People at greater risk of developing debilitating or fatal diseases related to arsenic exposure could be prioritised for treatment, following a study by Bangladeshi and US researchers.
Exposure to arsenic through contaminated drinking water is a major public health issue affecting millions of people, mostly in South Asia.
A previous study had linked as many as one in five deaths in Bangladesh to arsenic exposure, and the WHO has called the phenomenon "the largest mass poisoning" in history.
The new study — published in PLoS Genetics last month (23 February) — looked at why some people are more susceptible to arsenic poisoning, with a view to establishing whether there is a genetic basis to their susceptibility.
Researchers studied the entire genomes of 3,000 people in Bangladesh and found that those who developed arsenic-related skin lesions shared a common area of their genomes. Such lesions are an indicator of overall susceptibility to other arsenic-related diseases.
The researchers said their findings suggested that up to a third of the Bangladeshi population carries the genetic variation.
"The precise risk estimates are being investigated," said lead author Habibul Ahsan, an epidemiology professor at the University of Chicago, United States.
Ahsan told SciDev.Net that the discovery could inform the design of targeted screening programmes to identify those most at risk of developing arsenic-related illness.
"Since millions of exposed people can't realistically be treated, our findings will help identify susceptible sub-groups that can be provided with specific medical treatments," Ahsan said.
At present, he said, people with the genetic disposition have no alternative but to avoid contaminated water, although he acknowledged this was not always possible.
But he added that a range of treatments are being investigated, including low-cost therapies using vitamin E, selenium and folic acid, all of which are in clinical trials.
Once treatments become available, Ahsan said, those with the genetic susceptibility could be prioritised for treatment.
"We know from Chile and Taiwan that the risk of arsenic-related cancers and death remains high for the rest of [the lives of arsenic-affected people] — even after the exposure [risk] is removed by the provision of safe water," he said.
The researchers plan further large-scale studies, with a view to persuading the Bangladeshi government to engage more actively with the issue.
"This will help our doctors in curative and preventive management of arsenic-exposed patients," said Sudhir Kumar Ghosh, superintendent engineer at the Department of Public Health Engineering, in Bangladesh.
http://www.scidev.net/en/health/genomics/news/scientists-identify-genetic-vulnerability-to-arsenic-related-cancers.html
Monday, March 5, 2012
Climate migrants cause baby boom in Bangladesh's urban slums
02 Mar 2012
By Syful Islam
DHAKA, Bangladesh (AlertNet) – Climate and economic migrants to Bangladesh’s urban slums are contributing to a population boom that is creating social strains in this tiny and impoverished country of 160 million people.
“Lack of awareness and education, unavailability of contraceptives, absence of a social safety net and uncertainty over the future are among the reasons behind the baby boom of the slum refugees,” said Ainun Nishat, an environmentalist and vice chancellor of Brac University.
Bangladesh is suffering increasingly frequent flooding from cyclones and from heavy rainfall that experts believe is associated with climate change. Its coastal plains are particularly at risk, but many who live in the country’s interior are also vulnerable to river bank erosion – or conversely to drought.
When flooding and erosion displace families, and in many cases leave them landless and penniless, they often take refuge in urban areas, and have little option but to live in slums. There, lack of education about family planning, poor access to birth control and worries about financial security combine to result in large families.
“These unlucky people feel that in old age they will have to depend on children to secure a living. So, they prefer to take more number of children to be sure that at least one of them will take care of the parents,” Nishat said.
HIGH SLUM FERTILITY RATE
According to the 2006 Bangladesh Urban Health Survey, the total fertility rate – the average number of children born to a woman during her lifetime – is 4.5 in urban slums, far higher than the overall national rate of 2.5.
Bangladesh’s total fertility rate has plummeted over the past five decades from a peak of more than 7. But the country’s population density, the increasing frequency of natural disasters, and heavy migration to cities mean that the higher fertility rate among slum dwellers is set to create growing economic and social pressures.
Hamid Mia, 50, is a father of five who works as a boatman near the Korail slum in Dhaka, the country’s capital, where he has lived for 20 years. He lost his village home in Chaulakathi, in the southern district of Barishal, after the Kochar River claimed his family's land.
Mia’s two sons are rickshaw pullers while his three daughters work in garment factories to help the family.
“My sons and daughters are also working, as I can’t bear all the expenses of a seven-member family,” he said.
The World Bank estimates that nearly 42 million Bangladeshis, somewhat more than a quarter of the country’s population, live in urban areas. According to Nurun Nabi, a professor in the University of Dhaka’s Population Science Department, around 40 percent of urban residents live in slums, and they contribute three-quarters of live births in urban areas.
“Every couple (of child-bearing age) in the slums has around five to six children, while the other city dwellers have on an average two to three babies,” said Nabi.
“I do not know if all the slum dwellers are climate refugees but most of them have come from the countryside as they lost living places due to river erosion (or were) displaced due to natural calamities and lacked somewhere to live,” he said.
ENVIRONMENTAL MIGRANTS
The International Organization for Migration (IOM) said that about 70 percent of slum dwellers in Dhaka have experienced some kind of environmental disaster. By some accounts, half a million people move to the city each year, mainly from coastal and rural areas.
Ahsan Uddin Ahmed, executive director of the Centre for Global Change, a non-governmental organisation, said that the capital contributes 31 percent of the country’s GDP, making it attractive to people displaced by climate change and disasters and looking for jobs.
Ahmed and fellow researcher Sharmind Neelormi estimate that erosion, soil salinity and waterlogging of soil alone have the potential to displace about 100,000 rural residents annually. But population migration due to flooding is on a far greater scale.
Tahera Akter, a researcher with Unnayan Onneshan, an NGO, found that during the period 1970-2009, Bangladesh suffered major floods every three years on average, and that each occurrence displaced an average of a quarter of the country’s population. Akter predicts that as many as 78 million people could be displaced by floods, cyclones and droughts by 2020.
Dhaka’s population has grown to about 12 million since the nation’s independence in 1971, and the city’s slum population has increased from 275,000 in 1974 to 3.4 million in 2005, according to the Centre for Urban Studies, a Bangladeshi think tank.
Ahmed said that many slum residents are illiterate and do not understand that a big family can bring burdens for society as well as for themselves. To stop the population boom, he said that ensuring education of girls and women is crucial.
EDUCATING WOMEN KEY
International studies show that educating women and providing health care to ensure their children survive is one of the surest ways of reducing birth rates.
M.M. Neazuddin, director general of the government’s Family Planning Directorate, said that while family planning activities outside cities are meeting with success, the lack of adequate health services and awareness programmes in slum areas is causing the population boom in urban slums.
Neazuddin said that his office will implement a crash programme within a year to try to bring down the fertility rate in city slums.
In Korail slum, Hamid Mia said that some health centres run by the city corporation did exist.
“Health workers there offer family planning advice but I think those are not enough to reduce population growth. Providing contraceptives free of cost as well as motivation may help,” he said.
Brac University’s Nishat said that in the past health workers had supplied free contraceptives door to door, which had helped reduce population growth.
“But the government, on the World Bank’s advice, has stopped the door-to-door service and made it health-centre based,” he said. The problem is that the health centres are often far from people’s homes, and as a result, “people feel discouraged to avail themselves of the facility,” he said.
Syful Islam is a journalist with The Financial Express newspaper in Dhaka. He can be reached at: youths1990@yahoo.com.
http://www.trust.org/alertnet/news/climate-migrants-cause-baby-boom-in-bangladeshs-urban-slums/
By Syful Islam
DHAKA, Bangladesh (AlertNet) – Climate and economic migrants to Bangladesh’s urban slums are contributing to a population boom that is creating social strains in this tiny and impoverished country of 160 million people.
“Lack of awareness and education, unavailability of contraceptives, absence of a social safety net and uncertainty over the future are among the reasons behind the baby boom of the slum refugees,” said Ainun Nishat, an environmentalist and vice chancellor of Brac University.
Bangladesh is suffering increasingly frequent flooding from cyclones and from heavy rainfall that experts believe is associated with climate change. Its coastal plains are particularly at risk, but many who live in the country’s interior are also vulnerable to river bank erosion – or conversely to drought.
When flooding and erosion displace families, and in many cases leave them landless and penniless, they often take refuge in urban areas, and have little option but to live in slums. There, lack of education about family planning, poor access to birth control and worries about financial security combine to result in large families.
“These unlucky people feel that in old age they will have to depend on children to secure a living. So, they prefer to take more number of children to be sure that at least one of them will take care of the parents,” Nishat said.
HIGH SLUM FERTILITY RATE
According to the 2006 Bangladesh Urban Health Survey, the total fertility rate – the average number of children born to a woman during her lifetime – is 4.5 in urban slums, far higher than the overall national rate of 2.5.
Bangladesh’s total fertility rate has plummeted over the past five decades from a peak of more than 7. But the country’s population density, the increasing frequency of natural disasters, and heavy migration to cities mean that the higher fertility rate among slum dwellers is set to create growing economic and social pressures.
Hamid Mia, 50, is a father of five who works as a boatman near the Korail slum in Dhaka, the country’s capital, where he has lived for 20 years. He lost his village home in Chaulakathi, in the southern district of Barishal, after the Kochar River claimed his family's land.
Mia’s two sons are rickshaw pullers while his three daughters work in garment factories to help the family.
“My sons and daughters are also working, as I can’t bear all the expenses of a seven-member family,” he said.
The World Bank estimates that nearly 42 million Bangladeshis, somewhat more than a quarter of the country’s population, live in urban areas. According to Nurun Nabi, a professor in the University of Dhaka’s Population Science Department, around 40 percent of urban residents live in slums, and they contribute three-quarters of live births in urban areas.
“Every couple (of child-bearing age) in the slums has around five to six children, while the other city dwellers have on an average two to three babies,” said Nabi.
“I do not know if all the slum dwellers are climate refugees but most of them have come from the countryside as they lost living places due to river erosion (or were) displaced due to natural calamities and lacked somewhere to live,” he said.
ENVIRONMENTAL MIGRANTS
The International Organization for Migration (IOM) said that about 70 percent of slum dwellers in Dhaka have experienced some kind of environmental disaster. By some accounts, half a million people move to the city each year, mainly from coastal and rural areas.
Ahsan Uddin Ahmed, executive director of the Centre for Global Change, a non-governmental organisation, said that the capital contributes 31 percent of the country’s GDP, making it attractive to people displaced by climate change and disasters and looking for jobs.
Ahmed and fellow researcher Sharmind Neelormi estimate that erosion, soil salinity and waterlogging of soil alone have the potential to displace about 100,000 rural residents annually. But population migration due to flooding is on a far greater scale.
Tahera Akter, a researcher with Unnayan Onneshan, an NGO, found that during the period 1970-2009, Bangladesh suffered major floods every three years on average, and that each occurrence displaced an average of a quarter of the country’s population. Akter predicts that as many as 78 million people could be displaced by floods, cyclones and droughts by 2020.
Dhaka’s population has grown to about 12 million since the nation’s independence in 1971, and the city’s slum population has increased from 275,000 in 1974 to 3.4 million in 2005, according to the Centre for Urban Studies, a Bangladeshi think tank.
Ahmed said that many slum residents are illiterate and do not understand that a big family can bring burdens for society as well as for themselves. To stop the population boom, he said that ensuring education of girls and women is crucial.
EDUCATING WOMEN KEY
International studies show that educating women and providing health care to ensure their children survive is one of the surest ways of reducing birth rates.
M.M. Neazuddin, director general of the government’s Family Planning Directorate, said that while family planning activities outside cities are meeting with success, the lack of adequate health services and awareness programmes in slum areas is causing the population boom in urban slums.
Neazuddin said that his office will implement a crash programme within a year to try to bring down the fertility rate in city slums.
In Korail slum, Hamid Mia said that some health centres run by the city corporation did exist.
“Health workers there offer family planning advice but I think those are not enough to reduce population growth. Providing contraceptives free of cost as well as motivation may help,” he said.
Brac University’s Nishat said that in the past health workers had supplied free contraceptives door to door, which had helped reduce population growth.
“But the government, on the World Bank’s advice, has stopped the door-to-door service and made it health-centre based,” he said. The problem is that the health centres are often far from people’s homes, and as a result, “people feel discouraged to avail themselves of the facility,” he said.
Syful Islam is a journalist with The Financial Express newspaper in Dhaka. He can be reached at: youths1990@yahoo.com.
http://www.trust.org/alertnet/news/climate-migrants-cause-baby-boom-in-bangladeshs-urban-slums/
Wednesday, February 15, 2012
Model to predict cholera outbreaks earlier, better
Syful Islam
14 February 2012 | SciDev.net
[DHAKA] A newly developed cholera prediction model can help warn against possible outbreaks of the water-borne disease 11 months in advance.
The model, tested by a team of scientists from Bangladesh and the US, was reported in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences last month (23 January).
Scientists now have a tool that can even predict the severity of a cholera outbreak, Mohammad Yunus, senior scientist at the International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh, and a co-author of the report, told SciDev.Net.
The model classifies areas into no cholera, low cholera and high cholera zones and understands the dynamics of outbreaks as related to floods and other weather events in each location. Cholera is caused by the bacterium Vibrio cholerae and symptoms include watery diarrhoea and vomiting.
While the scientists have tested the model for use within the city of Dhaka and in hospitals in the administrative sub-divisions, using it on a nationwide scale would require highly trained mathematicians and personnel with computer modelling skills, Yunus said.
Yunus added, however, that "some form of the model could be implemented for prediction using user-friendly software."
While the basic science for a model to predict large cholera epidemics with an 11-month lead time has been devised, “an operational cholera prediction system would require developing tools that allow other scientists to input data for a particular area," Yunus explained.
"At present there are no prediction tools. So, scientists would need to replicate the study for either a different year or time," Yunus said. "If prediction model software tools are developed, and if scientists have the proper input data, then they could do the prediction themselves."
Yunus said the research group was also studying the model's effectiveness in predicting other diarrhoeal diseases. "We are doing the research in collaboration with our colleagues in Michigan (University of Michigan) and have plans to develop the software jointly. "
"The model needs to be validated with more studies using real time data," observed Mahmudur Rahman, director of the Institute of Epidemiology Disease Control and Research and National Influenza Centre, Bangladesh.
"If the group is successful, this model can help predict large cholera outbreaks," Rahman said.
http://www.scidev.net/en/south-asia/news/model-to-predict-cholera-outbreaks-earlier-better.html
14 February 2012 | SciDev.net
[DHAKA] A newly developed cholera prediction model can help warn against possible outbreaks of the water-borne disease 11 months in advance.
The model, tested by a team of scientists from Bangladesh and the US, was reported in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences last month (23 January).
Scientists now have a tool that can even predict the severity of a cholera outbreak, Mohammad Yunus, senior scientist at the International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh, and a co-author of the report, told SciDev.Net.
The model classifies areas into no cholera, low cholera and high cholera zones and understands the dynamics of outbreaks as related to floods and other weather events in each location. Cholera is caused by the bacterium Vibrio cholerae and symptoms include watery diarrhoea and vomiting.
While the scientists have tested the model for use within the city of Dhaka and in hospitals in the administrative sub-divisions, using it on a nationwide scale would require highly trained mathematicians and personnel with computer modelling skills, Yunus said.
Yunus added, however, that "some form of the model could be implemented for prediction using user-friendly software."
While the basic science for a model to predict large cholera epidemics with an 11-month lead time has been devised, “an operational cholera prediction system would require developing tools that allow other scientists to input data for a particular area," Yunus explained.
"At present there are no prediction tools. So, scientists would need to replicate the study for either a different year or time," Yunus said. "If prediction model software tools are developed, and if scientists have the proper input data, then they could do the prediction themselves."
Yunus said the research group was also studying the model's effectiveness in predicting other diarrhoeal diseases. "We are doing the research in collaboration with our colleagues in Michigan (University of Michigan) and have plans to develop the software jointly. "
"The model needs to be validated with more studies using real time data," observed Mahmudur Rahman, director of the Institute of Epidemiology Disease Control and Research and National Influenza Centre, Bangladesh.
"If the group is successful, this model can help predict large cholera outbreaks," Rahman said.
http://www.scidev.net/en/south-asia/news/model-to-predict-cholera-outbreaks-earlier-better.html
Thursday, January 26, 2012
Resilient homes to help coastal Bangladeshis withstand cyclones
17 Jan 2012
By Syful Islam
SHYMNAGAR, Bangladesh (AlertNet) – Rizia Akhter doesn’t look forward to what the coming storm season may bring, but for the first time in years she feels secure.
Akhter, 45 and a single mother of five children, lost her home in Ardasha Gram village when cyclone Aila struck Bangladesh’s southwest coastal region on May 25, 2009. The storm killed at least 300 people and destroyed 4,000 kilometres of roads and embankments. More than 87,000 people in the region lost their houses, possessions and livelihoods.
But Akhter is now one of 43 families in her village living in a newly constructed house - one that has been built to withstand the increasingly strong storms that experts say may be linked to climate change.
“When the warning about Aila was given, we didn’t understand how devastating the storm would be. We were not even sure whether the cyclone would hit or not. So we stayed at home. Within a few minutes of the cyclone hitting, a water surge washed out our house,” Akhter said.
The home that Akhter lost was made of iron sheets. Following the cyclone, her family had to live in a hut made of bamboo, straw and plastic sheets.
ELEVATED HOUSES
But her new house is built of wood, with brick roof tiles. Most important, it stands on four concrete pillars two metres tall to protect it from rising waters.
“The height offered is enough to deal with the expected rise in sea level and growing storm surges,” said Aminul Islam, assistant director of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in Bangladesh, which built the new houses in partnership with BRAC, a Bangladesh-based non-governmental development organisation.
The 170 square foot (15 square metre) homes are designed to withstand winds of up to 240 kph (150 mph).
Akhter and one of her daughters survived the 2009 cyclone by grabbing hold of a piece of iron roof sheeting that was floating past. She believes that if her family had been living in a sturdier elevated house, like her new one, they would not have been washed out and their lives endangered.
The Disaster Resilient Habitat (DRH) project aims to build safer settlements in Bangladesh coastal villages affected by cyclones or tidal surges, so that families can survive future cyclones.
COMMUNITY DESIGN
Community participation was an important element in designing the houses, and architects from BRAC University consulted with villagers before coming up with a design.
“The project’s innovative approach ensured that solutions came from within the community rather than being imposed from the outside,” Islam said.
One villager, Fatema, said that community members had originally asked that the walls and roofs of the houses be built with brick and iron rods to make them more resilient, because they feared the wooden walls and brick-tile roofs would be less strong.
But Ainun Nishat, vice chancellor of BRAC University and a climate change expert, said that even as built the new houses should be able to withstand 150 mph winds, and that using local materials such as wood helped keep costs low so that the structures could be replicated in the future.
The fact that much of the area devastated by Aila is still covered in saltwater also posed a challenge to other types of construction, according to Nishat.
“Had we built the walls and rooftops with (local) bricks made of salt water and mud, there was a significant chance of the structures being ruined within five or six years” because of the salt content in the bricks, he said. Bricks used for the roofs were brought from a distance away, workers said.
The project has also focused on creating local jobs, a key element because many livelihoods were wiped out by the cyclone.
“The whole process of developing the DRH concept offered employment opportunities for different sections (of society), including the families targeted,” said the UNDP’s Islam.
The $1,750 cost of each home was covered by UNDP, while the new residents helped with the construction.
Many in the area have to travel significant distances to find work in brick-making, while for those who want to stay closer to home, like Rizia Akhter, there is little employment available other than fishing or cutting mud to build embankments as a protection against storm surges.
The UNDP now plans to expand the construction of storm-resistant houses to villages affected by Aila in the Dacope sub-district of Khulna district.
“These villages are getting cyclone-resistant homes which will have solar energy, rainwater harvesting and (cyclone) early warning systems, and livelihood support,” said Islam. The additional homes are due to be ready in March, and the UNDP is seeking donors to underwrite further expansion of the programme.
AGING SHELTERS
Although Bangladesh’s 16 coastal districts have more than 2,800 storm shelters, which have dramatically decreased deaths from cyclones in recent decades, a growing number of the shelters are now unusable, according to officials from the Ministry of Disaster Management. Adequately protecting the coastal population will require building 2,500 new shelters, they said.
Some of the existing shelters also are located too far from villages to be of much use in a sudden disaster, NGO worker say. Part of the problem is that cyclone warnings are often disregarded because they have not always been accurate in the past, and the delay in seeking shelter can cost lives.
Gareth Price-Jones, Bangladesh country director for Oxfam, said storm-resistant houses will help save lives as long as they are adapted to villagers’ way of life. According to Price-Jones, mobilising the community to assess disaster risks, agree on the most vulnerable households and design practical action plans is crucial.
“The key issue that has arisen in the past is that these kinds of structures have not been genuinely owned by the community. Too many ... have sat unused after initial success in the past. (But) it looks in this case as though the community has been very much involved, which is a really positive sign,” he said.
Nevertheless, the wider problem of worsening extreme weather events, including cyclones, remains.
“Without a serious global effort to address climate change, then it’s almost inevitable that these communities will see increased risks, decreased resilience and deterioration in their living conditions over the next few years,” Price-Jones warned.
Syful Islam is a journalist with The Financial Express newspaper in Dhaka. He can be reached at: youths1990@yahoo.com. This story is part of a series supported by the Climate and Development Knowledge Network.
http://www.trust.org/alertnet/news/resilient-homes-to-help-coastal-bangladeshis-withstand-cyclones/
By Syful Islam
SHYMNAGAR, Bangladesh (AlertNet) – Rizia Akhter doesn’t look forward to what the coming storm season may bring, but for the first time in years she feels secure.
Akhter, 45 and a single mother of five children, lost her home in Ardasha Gram village when cyclone Aila struck Bangladesh’s southwest coastal region on May 25, 2009. The storm killed at least 300 people and destroyed 4,000 kilometres of roads and embankments. More than 87,000 people in the region lost their houses, possessions and livelihoods.
But Akhter is now one of 43 families in her village living in a newly constructed house - one that has been built to withstand the increasingly strong storms that experts say may be linked to climate change.
“When the warning about Aila was given, we didn’t understand how devastating the storm would be. We were not even sure whether the cyclone would hit or not. So we stayed at home. Within a few minutes of the cyclone hitting, a water surge washed out our house,” Akhter said.
The home that Akhter lost was made of iron sheets. Following the cyclone, her family had to live in a hut made of bamboo, straw and plastic sheets.
ELEVATED HOUSES
But her new house is built of wood, with brick roof tiles. Most important, it stands on four concrete pillars two metres tall to protect it from rising waters.
“The height offered is enough to deal with the expected rise in sea level and growing storm surges,” said Aminul Islam, assistant director of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in Bangladesh, which built the new houses in partnership with BRAC, a Bangladesh-based non-governmental development organisation.
The 170 square foot (15 square metre) homes are designed to withstand winds of up to 240 kph (150 mph).
Akhter and one of her daughters survived the 2009 cyclone by grabbing hold of a piece of iron roof sheeting that was floating past. She believes that if her family had been living in a sturdier elevated house, like her new one, they would not have been washed out and their lives endangered.
The Disaster Resilient Habitat (DRH) project aims to build safer settlements in Bangladesh coastal villages affected by cyclones or tidal surges, so that families can survive future cyclones.
COMMUNITY DESIGN
Community participation was an important element in designing the houses, and architects from BRAC University consulted with villagers before coming up with a design.
“The project’s innovative approach ensured that solutions came from within the community rather than being imposed from the outside,” Islam said.
One villager, Fatema, said that community members had originally asked that the walls and roofs of the houses be built with brick and iron rods to make them more resilient, because they feared the wooden walls and brick-tile roofs would be less strong.
But Ainun Nishat, vice chancellor of BRAC University and a climate change expert, said that even as built the new houses should be able to withstand 150 mph winds, and that using local materials such as wood helped keep costs low so that the structures could be replicated in the future.
The fact that much of the area devastated by Aila is still covered in saltwater also posed a challenge to other types of construction, according to Nishat.
“Had we built the walls and rooftops with (local) bricks made of salt water and mud, there was a significant chance of the structures being ruined within five or six years” because of the salt content in the bricks, he said. Bricks used for the roofs were brought from a distance away, workers said.
The project has also focused on creating local jobs, a key element because many livelihoods were wiped out by the cyclone.
“The whole process of developing the DRH concept offered employment opportunities for different sections (of society), including the families targeted,” said the UNDP’s Islam.
The $1,750 cost of each home was covered by UNDP, while the new residents helped with the construction.
Many in the area have to travel significant distances to find work in brick-making, while for those who want to stay closer to home, like Rizia Akhter, there is little employment available other than fishing or cutting mud to build embankments as a protection against storm surges.
The UNDP now plans to expand the construction of storm-resistant houses to villages affected by Aila in the Dacope sub-district of Khulna district.
“These villages are getting cyclone-resistant homes which will have solar energy, rainwater harvesting and (cyclone) early warning systems, and livelihood support,” said Islam. The additional homes are due to be ready in March, and the UNDP is seeking donors to underwrite further expansion of the programme.
AGING SHELTERS
Although Bangladesh’s 16 coastal districts have more than 2,800 storm shelters, which have dramatically decreased deaths from cyclones in recent decades, a growing number of the shelters are now unusable, according to officials from the Ministry of Disaster Management. Adequately protecting the coastal population will require building 2,500 new shelters, they said.
Some of the existing shelters also are located too far from villages to be of much use in a sudden disaster, NGO worker say. Part of the problem is that cyclone warnings are often disregarded because they have not always been accurate in the past, and the delay in seeking shelter can cost lives.
Gareth Price-Jones, Bangladesh country director for Oxfam, said storm-resistant houses will help save lives as long as they are adapted to villagers’ way of life. According to Price-Jones, mobilising the community to assess disaster risks, agree on the most vulnerable households and design practical action plans is crucial.
“The key issue that has arisen in the past is that these kinds of structures have not been genuinely owned by the community. Too many ... have sat unused after initial success in the past. (But) it looks in this case as though the community has been very much involved, which is a really positive sign,” he said.
Nevertheless, the wider problem of worsening extreme weather events, including cyclones, remains.
“Without a serious global effort to address climate change, then it’s almost inevitable that these communities will see increased risks, decreased resilience and deterioration in their living conditions over the next few years,” Price-Jones warned.
Syful Islam is a journalist with The Financial Express newspaper in Dhaka. He can be reached at: youths1990@yahoo.com. This story is part of a series supported by the Climate and Development Knowledge Network.
http://www.trust.org/alertnet/news/resilient-homes-to-help-coastal-bangladeshis-withstand-cyclones/
Friday, December 2, 2011
Air pollution causing stronger cyclones, study finds
Syful Islam
scidev.net
7 November 2011
[DHAKA] Air pollution from soot and aerosol emissions is making cyclones over the Middle East and South Asia more destructive, according to a study.
Natural differences in wind speed and direction over different heights in the atmosphere, known as 'wind shear', normally keep cyclones in check — effectively tearing the storms apart before they reach a certain size.
But emissions from sources such as biomass burning and diesel vehicles have interfered with wind patterns, reducing wind shear and enabling cyclones to grow twice as intense, according to a study published in Nature last week (3 November).
Researchers compared cyclones that occurred between 1979 and 1996 with those between 1997 and 2010. They found that the more recent ones were up to three times more intense, with higher wind speeds — and five of the strongest storms during the period occurred after 1998. Meanwhile, wind shear dropped in this latter period.
Aerosol emissions in the region have grown six-fold since the 1930s, creating a three kilometre-thick layer of pollution over the Indian Ocean, known as the South Asian atmospheric brown cloud, which absorbs sunlight, causing the ocean to cool and affecting wind circulation.
It was already known that soot pollution interferes with monsoons and even causes warming in the region.
"I would say that the effect on cyclones is very strongly linked to the well known effect of these aerosols on the monsoon circulation and rainfall; that is, their propensity to weaken the monsoon circulation and reduce rainfall," Amato Evan, lead author of the study and a researcher at the University of Virginia, United States, told SciDev.Net.
"We are showing that pollution from human activity — as simple as burning wood or driving a vehicle with a diesel engine — can actually change these massive atmospheric phenomena in a significant way. It underscores the importance of getting a handle on emissions in the region," said Evan in a press release.
"If you live in an area where these very strong cyclones can make landfall, this effect [the destruction due to the cyclone] is absolutely significant," Evan told SciDev.Net. "The historical tropical cyclones in the Arabian Sea that were very intense made landfall in India, Pakistan, Oman, and Iran, in each case with tremendous destruction and loss of life."
Ainun Nishat, vice chancellor of BRAC University, Bangladesh, said that the number of disasters caused by cyclones outside the monsoon period in South Asia has increased significantly in recent years.
"The intensity of cyclonic wind in the Bay of Bengal has increased a lot, which we noticed in cyclones such as Sidr and Aila, both of which caused a lot of destruction."
http://www.scidev.net/en/agriculture-and-environment/tropical-cyclones-1/news/air-pollution-causing-stronger-cyclones-study-finds.html
scidev.net
7 November 2011
[DHAKA] Air pollution from soot and aerosol emissions is making cyclones over the Middle East and South Asia more destructive, according to a study.
Natural differences in wind speed and direction over different heights in the atmosphere, known as 'wind shear', normally keep cyclones in check — effectively tearing the storms apart before they reach a certain size.
But emissions from sources such as biomass burning and diesel vehicles have interfered with wind patterns, reducing wind shear and enabling cyclones to grow twice as intense, according to a study published in Nature last week (3 November).
Researchers compared cyclones that occurred between 1979 and 1996 with those between 1997 and 2010. They found that the more recent ones were up to three times more intense, with higher wind speeds — and five of the strongest storms during the period occurred after 1998. Meanwhile, wind shear dropped in this latter period.
Aerosol emissions in the region have grown six-fold since the 1930s, creating a three kilometre-thick layer of pollution over the Indian Ocean, known as the South Asian atmospheric brown cloud, which absorbs sunlight, causing the ocean to cool and affecting wind circulation.
It was already known that soot pollution interferes with monsoons and even causes warming in the region.
"I would say that the effect on cyclones is very strongly linked to the well known effect of these aerosols on the monsoon circulation and rainfall; that is, their propensity to weaken the monsoon circulation and reduce rainfall," Amato Evan, lead author of the study and a researcher at the University of Virginia, United States, told SciDev.Net.
"We are showing that pollution from human activity — as simple as burning wood or driving a vehicle with a diesel engine — can actually change these massive atmospheric phenomena in a significant way. It underscores the importance of getting a handle on emissions in the region," said Evan in a press release.
"If you live in an area where these very strong cyclones can make landfall, this effect [the destruction due to the cyclone] is absolutely significant," Evan told SciDev.Net. "The historical tropical cyclones in the Arabian Sea that were very intense made landfall in India, Pakistan, Oman, and Iran, in each case with tremendous destruction and loss of life."
Ainun Nishat, vice chancellor of BRAC University, Bangladesh, said that the number of disasters caused by cyclones outside the monsoon period in South Asia has increased significantly in recent years.
"The intensity of cyclonic wind in the Bay of Bengal has increased a lot, which we noticed in cyclones such as Sidr and Aila, both of which caused a lot of destruction."
http://www.scidev.net/en/agriculture-and-environment/tropical-cyclones-1/news/air-pollution-causing-stronger-cyclones-study-finds.html
Bangladesh backs solar pumps to expand irrigation
By Syful Islam
29 Nov 2011
DHAKA (AlertNet) - The government of Bangladesh is planning to install close to 19,000 solar-powered irrigation pumps by 2016, in a bid to expand the country's irrigated land area and boost food production, while limiting its reliance on fossil fuels.
The initiative is being promoted as an environmentally friendly approach to improving food security for the country’s fast-growing population of 160 million.
The new pumps will run on a combined 150 megawatts (MW) of power generated by solar panels, which is projected to save the government nearly $100 million in fuel-subsidy costs over 20 years.
Today Bangladeshi farmers rely on some 266,000 electrically powered water pumps - which consume around 1,300 MW - to irrigate 1.7 million hectares (4.2 million acres) of land.
An additional 1.3 million diesel-run pumps are operated during the peak growing season to irrigate 3.4 million hectares (8.4 million acres) of land, using 900,000 tonnes of fuel, according to Bangladesh’s power and energy ministry.
Once installed, the planned 18,750 solar-powered pumps – which will be managed by farmers' associations - will irrigate an additional 590,000 hectares (1.5 million acres) of land for cultivating rice and vegetables, without requiring any grid electricity or diesel fuel.
Eventually the government hopes to switch over some of the land now irrigated with electric and diesel-powered pumps to solar pumps as well – if it can find financing, officials say.
The investment of $800 million needed for the project represents good value, they argue. Expanding irrigation with diesel-powered pumps, which are used mainly in rural areas not connected to the electricity grid, would require the government to subsidise farmers to the tune of $900 million over 20 years - $100 million more than the solar outlay.
LONG-TERM RETURNS
Bangladeshi farmers who depend on diesel-run pumps are permitted to buy diesel fuel at government-subsidised prices if they show official identity cards. The subsidies are a drain on public coffers, particularly as the fuel is usually sold at a lower price than its import cost.
“Solar power is costly (to install), but you will find it cheaper if the calculation is done on a long-term basis. A solar panel carries 20 years of warranty, and after that it can generate power for 20 more years,” said Islam Sharif, executive director of the state-run Infrastructure Development Co Ltd (IDCOL), which is managing the project.
In addition to projected fuel savings, Bangladesh anticipates being able to generate and trade carbon credits worth around $18 million from the project through the Kyoto Protocol's Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), with the income spread over 20 years, Sharif said.
IDCOL has already installed a dozen solar-powered irrigation pumps out of a total of 100 that will be placed across the country over the next 18 months under a pilot programme.
“After the pilot project is over, we will collect data on water levels across the country, hear the customers’ (farmers’) reaction, and gather other necessary data before starting installation of large numbers of irrigation pumps,” said Sharif.
IDCOL is working to find ways to lower the installation costs so the pumps can eventually be rolled out to the country’s 600 sub-districts, he added.
SMALL IS BEAUTIFUL
Bangladesh’s first solar-powered irrigation pump, with a capacity of 11 KW, was installed in 2009 in the northern district of Naogaon by Grameen Shakti, a micro-finance institution that is supporting the expansion of renewable energy in rural areas.
By comparison, the solar panels on the new pumps will each generate 5-7 KW of electricity. The smaller pumps, with the capacity to irrigate about 20 hectares per unit, can be managed more efficiently than larger models, according to Sharif. Each pump costs between $30,000 and $42,000.
Tapos Kumar Roy, additional secretary at the Ministry of Power, said the success of the pumps installed so far has convinced the government that introducing more could effectively provide clean energy and reduce the cost of diesel subsidies.
“The solar-run pumps will help reduce burning of fossil fuel…limiting the risk of global warming and climate change,” said Roy.
The government estimates that, once all the pumps are in place, their solar panels will save 675 MW hours of electricity per day, cut imports of diesel fuel by 47,000 tonnes per year, saving $45 million annually, and reduce carbon dioxide emissions by an annual 126,000 tonnes.
Roy said donor agencies, including the Asian Development Bank, as well as non-governmental organisations, micro-finance institutions, private companies and commercial banks, will play a significant role in funding the installation of the pumps, although specific commitments have yet to be finalised.
Abser Kamal, chief executive officer of Grameen Shakti, one of the project's backers, said it is a step towards making the country more self-sufficient in food, as extending irrigation to new areas will enable farmers to harvest more crops per year and boost yields.
“The solar-run pump we installed as a pilot (in 2009) covers irrigation of some 30 hectares of land and provides water at the same cost as that of diesel or electric pumps. Now the solar panels have become cheaper, so their installation cost will come down significantly and the capital (invested) will return comparatively quickly,” he added.
Syful Islam is a journalist with the Financial Express newspaper in Bangladesh. He can be reached at: youths1990@yahoo.com
This story is part of a series supported by the Climate and Development Knowledge Network.
http://www.trust.org/alertnet/news/bangladesh-backs-solar-pumps-to-expand-irrigation
29 Nov 2011
DHAKA (AlertNet) - The government of Bangladesh is planning to install close to 19,000 solar-powered irrigation pumps by 2016, in a bid to expand the country's irrigated land area and boost food production, while limiting its reliance on fossil fuels.
The initiative is being promoted as an environmentally friendly approach to improving food security for the country’s fast-growing population of 160 million.
The new pumps will run on a combined 150 megawatts (MW) of power generated by solar panels, which is projected to save the government nearly $100 million in fuel-subsidy costs over 20 years.
Today Bangladeshi farmers rely on some 266,000 electrically powered water pumps - which consume around 1,300 MW - to irrigate 1.7 million hectares (4.2 million acres) of land.
An additional 1.3 million diesel-run pumps are operated during the peak growing season to irrigate 3.4 million hectares (8.4 million acres) of land, using 900,000 tonnes of fuel, according to Bangladesh’s power and energy ministry.
Once installed, the planned 18,750 solar-powered pumps – which will be managed by farmers' associations - will irrigate an additional 590,000 hectares (1.5 million acres) of land for cultivating rice and vegetables, without requiring any grid electricity or diesel fuel.
Eventually the government hopes to switch over some of the land now irrigated with electric and diesel-powered pumps to solar pumps as well – if it can find financing, officials say.
The investment of $800 million needed for the project represents good value, they argue. Expanding irrigation with diesel-powered pumps, which are used mainly in rural areas not connected to the electricity grid, would require the government to subsidise farmers to the tune of $900 million over 20 years - $100 million more than the solar outlay.
LONG-TERM RETURNS
Bangladeshi farmers who depend on diesel-run pumps are permitted to buy diesel fuel at government-subsidised prices if they show official identity cards. The subsidies are a drain on public coffers, particularly as the fuel is usually sold at a lower price than its import cost.
“Solar power is costly (to install), but you will find it cheaper if the calculation is done on a long-term basis. A solar panel carries 20 years of warranty, and after that it can generate power for 20 more years,” said Islam Sharif, executive director of the state-run Infrastructure Development Co Ltd (IDCOL), which is managing the project.
In addition to projected fuel savings, Bangladesh anticipates being able to generate and trade carbon credits worth around $18 million from the project through the Kyoto Protocol's Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), with the income spread over 20 years, Sharif said.
IDCOL has already installed a dozen solar-powered irrigation pumps out of a total of 100 that will be placed across the country over the next 18 months under a pilot programme.
“After the pilot project is over, we will collect data on water levels across the country, hear the customers’ (farmers’) reaction, and gather other necessary data before starting installation of large numbers of irrigation pumps,” said Sharif.
IDCOL is working to find ways to lower the installation costs so the pumps can eventually be rolled out to the country’s 600 sub-districts, he added.
SMALL IS BEAUTIFUL
Bangladesh’s first solar-powered irrigation pump, with a capacity of 11 KW, was installed in 2009 in the northern district of Naogaon by Grameen Shakti, a micro-finance institution that is supporting the expansion of renewable energy in rural areas.
By comparison, the solar panels on the new pumps will each generate 5-7 KW of electricity. The smaller pumps, with the capacity to irrigate about 20 hectares per unit, can be managed more efficiently than larger models, according to Sharif. Each pump costs between $30,000 and $42,000.
Tapos Kumar Roy, additional secretary at the Ministry of Power, said the success of the pumps installed so far has convinced the government that introducing more could effectively provide clean energy and reduce the cost of diesel subsidies.
“The solar-run pumps will help reduce burning of fossil fuel…limiting the risk of global warming and climate change,” said Roy.
The government estimates that, once all the pumps are in place, their solar panels will save 675 MW hours of electricity per day, cut imports of diesel fuel by 47,000 tonnes per year, saving $45 million annually, and reduce carbon dioxide emissions by an annual 126,000 tonnes.
Roy said donor agencies, including the Asian Development Bank, as well as non-governmental organisations, micro-finance institutions, private companies and commercial banks, will play a significant role in funding the installation of the pumps, although specific commitments have yet to be finalised.
Abser Kamal, chief executive officer of Grameen Shakti, one of the project's backers, said it is a step towards making the country more self-sufficient in food, as extending irrigation to new areas will enable farmers to harvest more crops per year and boost yields.
“The solar-run pump we installed as a pilot (in 2009) covers irrigation of some 30 hectares of land and provides water at the same cost as that of diesel or electric pumps. Now the solar panels have become cheaper, so their installation cost will come down significantly and the capital (invested) will return comparatively quickly,” he added.
Syful Islam is a journalist with the Financial Express newspaper in Bangladesh. He can be reached at: youths1990@yahoo.com
This story is part of a series supported by the Climate and Development Knowledge Network.
http://www.trust.org/alertnet/news/bangladesh-backs-solar-pumps-to-expand-irrigation
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