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EPIB Trail
Climate Change
Volume 12, Issue 3
Refugees in Bangladesh
By Sucheta Gandhi
Across
the world, the issue of climate change is harming large amounts of people. “Climate change refugees are defined as people who have been forcibly displaced resulting from environmental factors caused by climate change and natural disasters” (Climate Refugees: A Global Crisis, 1). In Bangladesh specifically, the citizens that are suffering from the effects of climate change the most live in the vast Ganges Delta; they are migrating to cities such as Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh, in order to escape the rising sea levels. “Twenty-eight percent of the population of Bangladesh lives on the coast, where the primary driver of displacement is tidal flooding caused by sea level rise” (Climate Displacement in Bangladesh, 1). Since Bangladesh has low elevation, high population d e n s i t y, and i n a d e q u a t e
infrastructure, the country is vulnerable to the negative effects of climate change. Factors of climate change that have displaced large numbers of people in Bangladesh include sea level rise, storms, cyclones, drought, erosion, and salinization. The process of salinization has been increased by rising sea levels and occurs when coastal drinking water supplies have been contaminated by salt, leaving the thirty-three million people that rely on those resources more vulnerable to health problems such as acute respiratory infections, skin diseases, and high blood pressure during pregnancy. Symptoms of preeclampsia include rapid weight ga i n , a b d o m i n a l p a i n a n d headaches. Salinity also causes crop dam age because of s o i l degradation. As a result, the crops suffered large yield
