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Unlock This CourseThe spec asks for one detailed example of a named country or coastal area. Ours is the coast of Bangladesh. It pulls together ideas from Coastal Erosion, Transportation and Longshore Drift, Tropical Storms: Distribution and Impacts and Managing Tropical Storms. Here we apply them rather than teach them again.
Location: Bangladesh is an LIC in South Asia. Its southern coast faces the Bay of Bengal. It sits on the Ganges-Brahmaputra delta, where the Ganges, Brahmaputra and Meghna rivers meet and reach the sea. The land is flat and very low-lying, and tens of millions of people live on the low coast and delta.
Named places to use in an answer: the islands of Bhola and Kutubdia, the Meghna river mouth and the Sundarbans mangroves in the south-west.
1961 onwards: the first polders and coastal embankments are built.
1966: the Forest Department begins planting mangroves along the coast.
1970: the Bhola cyclone kills an estimated 300,000 to 500,000 people.
1972: the Cyclone Preparedness Programme is set up.
1991: a cyclone kills about 138,000 people.
2007: Cyclone Sidr kills about 3,400 people.
Erosion on Bhola: Bhola is the largest island in the delta. Its east coast, about 130 km long, loses several km2 of land a year (some estimates say 5 to 10 km2). Kutubdia, off the coast near Cox's Bazar, is also shrinking.
| Type | Impacts |
|---|---|
| Social | Homes and villages are washed away and families become migrants, often moving to slums in cities such as Dhaka. Schools and clinics are lost. Cyclones kill and injure people. |
| Economic | Farmland, crops, boats and livestock are lost. Salt water gets into soil and wells, so rice yields fall. Roads, bridges and embankments need costly repair, which is hard for an LIC. |
| Environmental | Mangroves and wetlands are damaged. Salt water spreads inland and fresh water supplies become salty. Habitats for fish and wildlife shrink. |
Cyclone Sidr, November 2007: Sidr was a very powerful cyclone that hit the south-west coast with a storm surge of about 5 m. About 3,400 people died. Millions were affected, hundreds of thousands of homes were damaged and crops and boats were destroyed. The Sundarbans mangroves took a lot of the damage, which showed their value as a barrier.
Bangladesh uses both hard and soft approaches, as in Managing Coasts: Hard and Soft Engineering.
Sustainable here means protecting people and land in ways that last and do not harm the environment or future generations. Mangroves and community volunteers fit this best. Concrete embankments are less sustainable because they cost a lot to keep up.
| Cyclone | Approximate deaths |
|---|---|
| Bhola, 1970 | 300,000 to 500,000 |
| 1991 | about 138,000 |
| Sidr, 2007 | about 3,400 |
| Strengths | Weaknesses |
|---|---|
| Deaths have fallen by about 97% from 1991 to 2007 even though Sidr was also a powerful storm. Warnings and shelters are low cost and community-led. Mangroves also give fish, wood and a habitat. | Homes, crops and the way people earn a living is still lost, so poor families stay at risk. Embankments are damaged and need constant repair. Rising seas and erosion on islands such as Bhola are not stopped. Some people will not leave animals and belongings and refuse to go to shelters. |
Judgement: management has been very successful at saving lives, but much less successful at protecting land and livelihoods. In an answer, give a figure, a named place and a balanced judgement.
Study a coast in a named LIC or MIC that you have studied.
(a) Identify one natural cause of coastal erosion at your named example. [1 mark]
(b) Describe two impacts of cyclones on people at your named example. [2 marks]
(c) Evaluate how far strategies and techniques have protected your named example from tropical storms. [6 marks]
(a) Soft delta sediments, which are easily eroded (1).
(b) In Cyclone Sidr, about 3,400 people died (1). Many homes were destroyed, so families lost shelter and their way of earning a living (1).
(c) Strategies have been very effective at saving lives (1). The Cyclone Preparedness Programme uses volunteers to warn people and move them to shelters, so deaths fell from about 138,000 in 1991 to about 3,400 in 2007 (2). Mangrove green belts reduce wave and wind energy and are sustainable (1). However, embankments on polders were damaged by Sidr and need costly repair, and erosion on islands such as Bhola continues because sea levels are rising (1). Overall, management has been successful for lives but only partly for land and livelihoods (1).
A top-level answer is balanced (strengths and weaknesses), uses named evidence and figures, and ends with a clear judgement.
For a 6-mark 'Evaluate' answer, write one strength, one weakness and a final judgement, each backed by a named place or a rounded figure.