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Bangladesh & the Surging BANGLADESH & THE SURGING SEA A Vulnerability Assessment with Projections for Sea Level Rise and Coastal Flood Risk This page intentionally blank BANGLADESH & THE SURGING SEA A Vulnerability Assessment with Projections for Sea Level Rise and Coastal Flood Risk ABOUT CLIMATE CENTRAL Climate Central surveys and conducts scientific research on climate change and informs the public of key findings. Our scientists publish and our journalists report on climate science, energy, sea level rise, wildfires, drought, and related topics. Climate Central is not an advocacy organization. We do not lobby, and we do not support any specific legislation, policy or bill. Climate Central is a qualified 501(c)3 tax-exempt organization. Climate Central scientists publish peer-reviewed research on climate science; energy; impacts such as sea level rise; climate attribution and more. Our work is not confined to scientific journals. We investigate and synthesize weather and climate data and science to equip local communities and media with the tools they need. February 2017 Princeton: One Palmer Square, Suite 330 Princeton, NJ 08542 Phone: +1 609 924-3800 Toll Free: +1 877 4-CLI-SCI / +1 (877 425-4724) www.climatecentral.org 2 BANGLADESH AND THE SURGING SEA REPORT AUTHORS BEN STRAUSS, PhD, Lead Vice President for Sea Level Rise and Climate Impacts, Climate Central Dr. Strauss is the Vice President for Sea Level Rise and Climate Impacts at Climate Central. He has published multiple scientific papers on sea level rise, testified before the U.S. Senate, and led development of the SurgingSeas.org coastal flood risk tool, leading to front-page coverage in the New York Times and Washington Post, appearances on NBC, ABC, CBS, PBS and NPR national programming. He holds a Ph.D. in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology from Princeton University, an M.S. in Zoology from the University of Washington, and a B.A. in Biology from Yale University. SCOTT KULP Computational Scientist and Senior Developer, Climate Central Dr. Scott Kulp serves as Computational Scientist and Senior Developer for Climate Central’s Program on Sea Level Rise, where his research interests include the impacts of sea level rise on coastal communities. He is also focused on the development of Climate Central’s Surging Seas 2.0 Analysis System and Risk Finder web toolkit. Scott holds a Ph.D. in Computer Science from Rutgers University for his work on the topic of cardiac blood flow simulations. Previously, Dr. Kulp has worked for the U.S. Department of Defense on several research projects, such as the simulation of iris tissue deformation and GPU-accelerated neural networks. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This publication is an output from the Raising Risk Awareness project. The project is funded by the UK Department for International Development (DFID) through the Climate and Development Knowledge Network (CDKN), and by Eric and Wendy Schmidt through Climate Central, Inc. CDKN is a programme funded by DFID and the Netherlands Directorate-General for International Cooperation (DGIS) for the benefit of developing countries. SUGGESTED CITATION Strauss, B., S. Kulp (2017). Bangladesh and the Surging Sea: A vulnerability assessment with projections for sea level rise and coastal flood risk. Climate Central Research Report. pp 1-30. 3 BANGLADESH AND THE SURGING SEA CONTENTS Executive Summary 7 Introduction 8 Approach 9 Sea level rise projections 9 Tidal water heights 9 Elevation analysis 9 Exposure analysis 10 Results 11 Conclusion 14 Appendix A: Additional Detail on Methods 19 References 20 Figures 22 4 BANGLADESH AND THE SURGING SEA CONTENTS 5 BANGLADESH AND THE SURGING SEA EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Due to its unique topography and high population density, Bangladesh is extremely vulnerable to rising sea levels this century. This report presents an awssessment of sea level rise and coastal flood exposure at national, division and district levels, using new high-resolution elevation data plus local sea level rise projections, tidal heights, minor flood heights, and population maps to analyze land area and current population below a range of potential water levels. If global carbon emissions continue unabated, over 1,000 km2 of land in Bangladesh could be permanently under the new high tide line by 2100, on which more than 8 lakh people current live. Twice as much land and more than 20 lakh people are at risk of frequent flooding from storm surge plus tides. Barisal, Chittagong, and Khulna are the divisions holding most of the risk, while Chittagong and Cox’s Bazar (both in Chittagong division) are the leading districts in potential exposure this century. 6 BANGLADESH AND THE SURGING SEA 01. INTRODUCTION Climbing global temperatures bring rising sea levels worldwide. Not only do melting glaciers and collapsing ice sheets add enormous amounts of extra water to the oceans, but growing ocean temperatures are also causing sea water to expand. While rising tides are a threat to all coastal countries, Bangladesh is one of the most vulnerable in the world, with its flat, low-lying topography, numerous water bodies and rivers, and over 48% of its large, dense population currently living less than 10 meters above sea level [1]. A number of studies have investigated the impact of sea level rise on coastal flood exposure in Bangladesh during the most devastating storms, such as tropical cyclones [1]–[4]. Such events are already catastrophic to lives and infrastructure in the low elevation coastal zone, and will become even more so with sea level rise adding to storm surge heights. However, rare extreme events are not the only coastal challenges Bangladesh will face in the coming decades. This report focuses on land at risk of falling permanently below the future high tide line, and on threats from common floods as they reach ever higher. The analysis employs a recently published high-resolution digital elevation model covering Bangladesh, advancing prior research that has used models 3 to 30 times coarser in resolution. This study uses sea level rise projections, tidal models, flood models, and elevation data to compute a range of potential permanent or temporary inundation layers for all areas inside Bangladesh. The sea level component depends upon the carbon emission pathway global society follows this century. The area of the land covered by each inundation layer, and the total population currently occupying it, are used as indicators of exposure; these are tallied nationwide, by division, and by district. Related threats such as freshwater salinization [5]–[7] are not explored here. Climate Central has developed two interactive online tools that present results related to this report. The Surging Seas Risk Zone Map (ss2.climatecentral.org) shows local sea level projections and areas vulnerable to submergence or flooding at different water levels. The Surging Seas Risk Finder (riskfinder.org) presents land and population exposed at different levels, from district through national scales. 7 BANGLADESH AND THE SURGING SEA 02. APPROACH SEA LEVEL RISE PROJECTIONS This report considers two possible futures of sea level rise this century, depending on whether global greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise unabated (Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP) 8.5), or if large and immediate cuts are made to global emissions (RCP 2.6) – a range that represents the full spectrum of likely outcomes. Local sea level rise projections at tide gauges along the Bangladeshi coast are taken from [8], and interpolated into a continuous surface across Bangladesh by using values from the nearest neighbor tide gauge for each location. The global projections on which these local estimates are based closely match those found by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) [9], but also include full probability distributions (including the tails) of potential ice sheet loss and sea level rise. Furthermore, [8] includes a local component to sea level rise, accounting for land subsidence and local sea surface dynamics by extrapolating historical differences between local and global trends, into the future. After applying nearest-neighbor interpolation, the estimates of land subsidence in this work agree reasonably well with other recent literature in the area, e.g., [10], which lists Dhaka experiencing 5.9 (0.4-22.0) mm/yr (Kopp: 1.07mm/yr), Khulna experiencing 3.5 (1.0-10.0) mm/yr (Kopp: 5.67 mm/yr), and Kolkata experiencing 8.6 (0.5-43.8) mm/yr (Kopp: 15.84 mm/yr). However, land subsidence rates can change significantly over small areas, as suggested by [10], [11], and so both [8] and this analysis offer just a broad estimate of this problem and its impacts. We also note that more recent studies [12] suggest that if the West Antarctic Ice Sheet destabilizes before 2100, global sea levels could rise much faster than [8] predicts. In this scenario, the exposure described in this report could be reached decades earlier than expected. TIDAL WATER HEIGHTS This report approaches water height – and therefore exposure – in two different ways. First, sea level rise elevates the local high tide line (mean higher high water, or MHHW), and all land and population under a new high tide line are considered permanently inundated. Alternatively, sea level rise makes coastal flooding more frequent, as the height of the average highest water level each year grows (mean annual maximum water level, or MAM). Land and population under this level might expect to be flooded every few years or more frequently, all the way up to and including permanent inundation. ELEVATION ANALYSIS This analysis uses elevation data on a roughly 30-meter horizontal resolution grid derived from NASA’s Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM). This is the highest resolution digital elevation model publically available in Bangladesh, and this analysis is the first Bengali coastal flood exposure assessment developed using this detailed model. However, SRTM provides surface elevations, not bare earth elevations, causing it to commonly overestimate elevations, especially in areas with dense and tall buildings [13] or vegetation [14].
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