Be it floods or cyclonic storms, the specter of natural hazards looms large to the over 170 million people who call Bangladesh home. Between 2000 and 2023, disasters such as floods and tropical cyclones affected 130 million people and caused $13.6 billion in total damages. Spanning over 700 kilometers, Bangladesh’s low-lying coastal areas are especially vulnerable to such events which are now becoming more frequent in this changing climate. 

With support from the Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery (GFDRR) and the World Bank, Bangladesh continues to make significant headway toward protecting lives and livelihoods from the impacts of natural hazards and climate change. 

GFDRR technical assistance was instrumental in the design and implementation of the $400 million first phase of the Coastal Embankment Improvement Project, which, over the past decade, has supported upgrades of the country’s sprawling system of coastal polders (areas enclosed on all sides by dikes, or embankments, separated from the main river system). 

“[The project] has demonstrated that resilient coastal infrastructure can be delivered at scale in Bangladesh—laying the foundation for future phases . . . By building the Bangladesh Water Development Board’s capacity—from coastal monitoring and training to community engagement and the formation of water management organizations—the project ensures that resilience will endure long after construction is complete.” —Mohammad Habibur Rahman, former Project Director, first phase of the Coastal Embankment Improvement Project

Through this project, Bangladesh has rehabilitated and improved 10 polders, protecting a gross area of over 65,000 hectares. In total, over 720,000 people are now able to live in safer and more resilient communities much more protected from flooding than before. Providing communities a first line of defense against flooding from extreme weather events, Bangladesh’s coastal polders have been seeing damage from cyclones, poor maintenance, and inadequate management, thus creating the need for the rehabilitation. 

The rehabilitation and improvement work consisted of slope protection and increases to embankment height, as well as repairs and upgrades to drainage and flushing systems within the polders. These works, in addition to reducing flood risk to communities, have improved agricultural production by reducing saline water intrusion in the 10 polders. Tellingly, within the rehabilitated polders the area where watermelons are cultivated is now twice as large as in areas where polders were not rehabilitated. 

The polders that were rehabilitated and improved were selected based on a set of criteria that included the physical condition of the embankment and economic activities in the polders, as well as socioeconomic and environmental conditions. 

In conjunction with these efforts, support under the first phase of the Coastal Embankment Improvement Project has also enabled the afforestation, or the planting of forest in an area that previously had no tree cover, spanning a total area of 700 hectares. A cost-effective nature-based solution, the afforestation has amplified the flood protection effects of the polder improvements.