The existing paved roads are functional for now, but are at risk of degradation and may be nonfunctional in the face of floods. The cost of repaving these roads is greater than the minimal improvements that are made through repaving them, as several thousands of dollars must be paid for every repair. Excluding the cost of reinforcing roads, the maintenance of existing roads is extremely expensive due to the natural erosive nature of the constant weathering from the natural weather present in Bangladesh.[1] Additionally, the risk of a corrupt government hand interfering with the money and its destination cannot be ignored.[1] We have two solutions: fund the pavement of roads through NGOs and prepare a form of water transportation to mitigate the effects of any still unpaved roads.
Currently, the majority of the roads are not paved in the rural areas. These unpaved stretches of land are highly susceptible to erosion from any source of water, which makes them unusable and unsound.[4] These are dangerous for the people that are inadvertently stuck behind the onslaught of the dangerous water.[3] Because of this, the standard of road quality needs to be increased to meet the demands of the imminent dangers.[4]
“Single-lane sealed roads have a higher capital cost, but they provide a more reliable all-weather network with lower maintenance costs.”[4]
Together with funding roads, while planning for the worst, we should provide a means by which these people can still mobilize in spite of water impeding the use of roads. Therefore, to combat flash floods, we need a floating solution and a mobility solution. We need to keep livestock and people from drowning, and a means of moving them out of the way of harm. Therefore we propose funding quickly accessible boats that can hold several families and their living property. Ideally, an easily identifiable ark that can be traveled to by smaller boats that each family could construct with resources from an NGO would optimally provide a safe end goal.
By incorporating a community-based adaptation approach to this problem, the information could be effectively communicated. Instead of pouring hundreds of thousands of dollars into government projects, donations and non-profit efforts should best focus on spreading this idea and the much less costly materials for building boats.
Usually boats have been seen as a reactive solution to flooding already taking place, but we can shift the paradigm of the utility of boats into a proactive measure to combat future flooding. Rescue boats typically cost up to tens of thousands of dollars, which at first is comparable to the cost of repairing roads, but boat repair is less expensive than road repair as the materials are less expensive, and the people can build their own boats more easily than pave roads.[1] Also, there would be an increase in a new and potentially profitable industry, which would serve as a new form of work for the 40% of underemployed people of Bangladesh.[2]
These short-term solutions should be able to combat the problems arising due to unwanted levels of water. Over time, the need to pave more roads will reach a stopping point, or the effect of boats will have achieved the desired effect, or a newer and better solution will be presented.
By Jeremy Dudo
References
- Collier, P., Kirchberger, M., & Soderbom, M. (n.d.). The cost of road infrastructure in developing countries. doi:10.1061/(asce)1076-0342(2009)15:4(278)
- Contact CIA. (n.d.). Retrieved November 29, 2017, from https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/fields/2129.html
- Local Government Engineering Department for the People’s Republic of Bangladesh and the Asian Development Bank. (2017, June). Climate Change Assessment and Adaptation Strategy. Retrieved from https://www.adb.org/sites/default/files/linked-documents/45084-002-ban-oth-01.f
- The World Bank. (2010). Bangladesh – Economics of Adaptation to Climate Change (No. 70266) (pp. 1–130). The World Bank. Retrieved from http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/841911468331803769/Main-report