Thereafter, a panel discussion was held; the panelists were Mr. Saiful Alam – ex- Technical Director of WARPO, Malik Fida A Khan – Deputy Executive Director, Operation of CEGIS (Center for Environmental and Geographic Information Services), Dr.

Md. Taibur Rahman – Project Manager, UNDP, Dr. Sultan Ahmed – Additional Secretary, Department of Environment (DoE). The panel session was chaired by Professor Dr. Shamsul Alam–Member (Senior Secretary), General Economics Division (GED), Bangladesh Planning Commission, Government of Bangladesh.

Mr. Saiful Alam discussed Water Resources Planning Organization (WARPO)’s past involvement and contributions in the two before mentioned projects and the technical know-how provided for BDP 2100. He also briefly discussed the modelling aspects of WARPO and the two projects.  Mr. Malik Fida A Khan appreciated the value of the projects in integrating science and policy in Bangladesh and then emphasized on the importance of mainstreaming of tools such as the Delta Dynamic Integrated Emulator Model to ensure maximum science-policy linkage. Professor Shamsul Alam particularly pointed out glaring data gaps on climate change issues in Bangladesh and mentioned that the ESPA Deltas and the DECCMA projects have contributed a lot in somewhat abridging those gaps. Dr. Taibur discussed about the nexus between the scientific community and policy makers. He accentuated the importance of not adopting a consultant based approach for long term delta planning and encouraged the policy makers, politicians and leaders to be more accepting of a science-backed approach in planning, ensuring sustainable development. Dr. Sultan highlighted on how coastal vulnerabilities of Bangladesh have been exacerbated by degrading ecosystem services. He then discussed several approaches to bridging gaps between the scientific community and policy makers.

After speeches from the panelists, the floor was opened to the audience for a lively discussion session. At the end of discussions, Professor Dr. Munsur thanked everyone and subsequently Professor Shamsul Alam drew an official end to the session.

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I couldn’t help but draw a connection between the triangular face of the pyramid, the triangular cross-section of the papyrus, and the triangular shape of a delta. I wondered if the delta being a lifeline of the region could have any role to play in influencing the triangular faces of the pyramids.

The River Nile

The very first sight of the River Nile at Cairo brought back geography lessons and hours of meticulous map pointing learnt way back in school. I was seeing the world’s longest river and Cairo was the apex of the Nile delta. Our itinerary entailed a 3-night river cruise along the Nile and I was excited to experience it. From our river cruise, we availed an optional speedboat ride to a Nubian village (about 8kms from Aswan) and that gave us an opportunity to soak our feet in the cool waters of the Nile. Before this ride, I knew that cataracts are for aging eyes but during this speedboat ride, our guide showed us the first cataract of the Nile. Cataracts are a mass of rocky formations in the riverbed jutting well above the water. Around this cataract the otherwise calm water was breaking and speeding naturally.

Alexandria

The journey from Cairo to Alexandria took us about three hours by car. I noticed a stretch where there were many Brick kilns on both sides of the road. This was similar to what we see in the Indian Bengal Delta (IBD). I am not sure if the areas under brickfields in Egypt have undergone similar land transformations like in IBD but I wondered if conversion of deltaic lands into brickfields is a globally lucrative trend.

Flooding of the Nile

Since time immemorial Nile floods have quenched the thirst of the adjacent flood plains and added silt which has played a major role to support the Egyptian civilization. While no flooding led to drought followed by famine, severe flooding proved hazardous. It was the moderate flooding that the Egyptians looked forward to and this was the important part of their agricultural cycle as after the inundation season they sowed the seeds. Like any natural hazard, floods back then too had an effect on the economy – nature of flooding would have an impact on the quality of the harvest which will determine the tax to be paid. These administrative decisions were taken based on the exemplary mechanisms which were in place to predict the floods and thereby the quality of the harvest.

While scientists today have the flood-prediction models, the ancient Egyptians had the Nilometer. We saw one such Nilometer at the Temple of Kom Ombo, Aswan. It looked like a well to us till we were explained the elaborate architecture it housed. Upon looking down, we saw a flight of steps going down along the interior wall of the cylindrical well (see image 6). The water in it is the water of the Nile as the well is connected to the River. Being situated within the temple complex it was accessible only by the priests and kings who were responsible for assessing the water level in the Nilometer, making predictions based on how many steps were inundated, before finally deciding the tax. Like our scientists today who use previous years’ data to fit into models, the ancient Egyptians too kept a record of the previous years’ flood level by keeping marks on the walls. Unfortunately, now these Nilometers have been rendered defunct after the construction of the Aswan High Dam.

Developmental Project, Relocation, and Resettlement

Continuing the discussion on floods, the construction of the Aswan High Dam was an effort to introduce controlled flooding alongside providing water for irrigation and generating hydroelectricity. The economic benefits of this developmental project have mainly been in agricultural and electrical production. The construction of the dam involved resettlement of about 50,000 Egyptians and relocation of ancient monuments as the reservoir, Lake Nasser, created by the dam has flooded the valley. The famous Abu Simbel temple was relocated to higher grounds and I did not understand that the temple was not built at its present place till the guide told me. Not only did I feel overawed seeing the gigantic facade of the temple, I felt awe at the acumen involved in making this relocation happen.

The relocation of the temple was a great feat achieved by archaeologists but it might have been easier than the relocation of the Nubians as the temple did not have a lifestyle and tradition entwined with its original land. Upon some research I learnt that the construction of the Aswan High Dam is not the first time that the Nubians were moving from their lands. During the construction and heightening of the Aswan Low Dam, these people moved to higher lands but after the construction of the High Dam their villages were submerged under Lake Nasser. The Egyptian government put in years of study to make this a successful planned resettlement by trying to replicate as many features of the Nubian villages and also by providing electricity, road network, and irrigational facilities.[1] However all don’t seem happy (as informed by our guide) with the resettlement as this new place hampers the traditional Nubian way of life in many ways. Some online research would also throw light on the gaps in the resettlement process. These lessons might be beneficial for other governments making efforts in planned resettlement.

Migration then and now

The mystery behind the construction of pyramids still remains and there are countless theories trying to answer who constructed those and how they managed to achieve such a height of architectural precision in ancient times. One of the theories which I learnt was that the farmers from the plains came up to the Giza Plateau, when the Nile’s annual flood inundated their agricultural lands, to work as labourers in the construction of the Pyramids. Skilled architects and artists supervised these labour groups. My DECCMA-laced mind made a note of this example of seasonal migration from more than 3000 years ago which had an environmental factor (at the source) prompting it and an economic opportunity in the destination.

We got a very brief glimpse of migration today as our guide informed us that tourism being an important industry (tourism took a hit after the revolution in 2011 but is slowly picking up since 2016), people migrate to Cairo and Alexandria to work in the hotels, with tourist companies, or even as freelancing guides.

Sobek & Dakshin Rai

The Nile is famous for the Nile Crocodiles and the ancient Egyptians worshipped crocodile as god Sobek. The crocodile, although feared, was venerated and given a place in the temple of Kom Ombo, beside which there is now a Crocodile Museum showcasing the relevance of crocodiles in ancient Egypt with its large collection of mummified crocodiles. The worship was to please Sobek and pray so that he would not harm anyone. I saw this as an extension of the people of the Indian Sundarbans (West Bengal, India) worshipping the Royal Bengal Tiger in the form of Dakshin Rai (Lord of the South). Dakshin Rai is greatly feared in the delta but also worshipped along with Bon Bibi (guardian spirit of the forest) to not harm the people who venture into the forest for crab and honey collection. Separated by thousands of miles and years, the similarity in the belief of the two deltaic civilizations fascinated me.

Had DECCMA not happened to me, I would not have enjoyed my holiday the way I did – taking down notes on my phone, doing some online reading, drawing parallels across deltas, and wondering about things which would not have occurred to me otherwise. On learning about the tomb raiders I had a thought with which I shall end this post. The Great Pyramid of Giza and most of the tombs in the Valley of Kings have been wiped clean of artefacts and treasures which were believed to be there as was the ancient Egyptian custom to help the deceased continue onto the next life. I would like to believe that the tomb raiders who took these objects were in need of the money or wanted luxury and concentrated only on their immediate present which made them overlook the fact that their act was depriving hundreds of generations from witnessing a magnificent past of Egypt. Let us not be the tomb raiders for our future generations. We can do our little bits to not exploit the environment to meet our immediate needs and luxuries so that we do not deprive the future generations from witnessing a clean, healthy, and beautiful Earth.

[1] R. A. Beddis. The Aswan High Dam and the resettlement of the Nubian people. Geography 1963; 48(1): 79.

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The participants in the workshop were from government departments, Banks, Universities, NGOs, CBOs, and SHGs. There were a total of 33 participants comprising 23 men and 10 women.

DECCMA was introduced and its objectives were shared. Following this, the findings from the project were shared with respect to governance analysis, risk, hazard, multi-hazard, net migration maps, household survey, and adaptation examples taking place in the DECCMA study area of the Mahanadi Delta. The findings were shared firstly at the study area level and then concentrated on the Bhadrak district for evoking better responses from stakeholders.

Barriers to Policy Implementation and Criteria for Successful Adaptation surveys were conducted. The questionnaires were translated into local language Odia and participants were handed out either the English version or Odia version depending on their preferences. The analyses of these surveys are currently being carried out by the team.

Insights were gained from stakeholders on the effects of climate change, vulnerability, migration and adaptation taking place in the Puri district of the Mahanadi Delta. Some key responses are as follows :

–         In migration and Out migration of the various blocks of the district have different reasons (eg Basudevpur and Chandbali). Seasonal migration needs to be captured.

–         The movement of men and women are different. The destination is generally Gujarat and South (Kerala). Young girls are also migrating independently to work in garment factories.

–          Fishing has been restricted for the Dhamra port, which in turn is affecting the livelihood of the people. This leads to migration.

–          To boost agriculture, many initiatives are being taken by the Govt department of Agriculture such as provision of crop insurance, supporting crop diversification, saline tolerant paddy supply, appointment of female agriculture officers, extension work  etc

–          Plantation of mangrove can reduce the cyclonic effect in coastal areas but it needs to be taken up by the communities in a large scale.

–          In pre disaster preparedness programmes, participation of women is good. In Flood/ Cyclone Shelter Management committees one third members are women.

–          In micro planning for livelihood (under Livelihood Mission), disaster is not specifically factored in.

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Dr Anwara Begum (pictured below) presented the paper Risks of involuntary resettlement initiatives in Bangladesh in the session “Resettlement as Transformation” proposed by DECCMA member Helen Adams (UCL, UK) and chaired by Jennifer Hodbod. The focus of the session was on involuntary resettlements as deliberate actions, often decided upon by a few external actors, and implemented for positive objectives but with unpredictable outcomes, representing a microcosm to understand trade-offs and uncertainties in transformation. Other speakers in the session were Sophie Blackburn (King’s College London) presenting Challenges of ‘deliberate transformation’: Lessons from post-tsunami resettlement in the Andaman Islands, South India; and Christopher Lyon (University of Dundee) presenting Resettlement as refugia under extreme environmental change scenarios.

Based on fieldwork findings and literature analysis, Anwara’s talk focused on the challenges faced by resettled communities in Bangladesh due to limited infrastructure, social services, or support for livelihoods transition provided by formal government backed resettlement projects. Of the interviewed households in her research, many of those who received resettlement support were unsatisfied. More than 75 per cent of people wanted to return to their ancestral home because of their desire to reconnect with their sense of community and previous livelihoods. There was no consensus on the efficacy of resettlement as a policy, particularly for women and children. Some respondents suggested that greater effort should be placed on community-based adaptation instead.

DECCMA also participated in a session organised by the TransRe Project: “Mobility, translocality and the resilience of socio-ecological systems: Exploring concepts and empirical evidence.” Migration and the various dimensions of population movement was a topic present in many sessions of the conference, yet it was discussed in a topical manner as a disturbing factor external to social-ecological systems rather than as a field of resilience research in its own right. How migration could be addressed from a resilience perspective was discussed by three presenters.

First, Sabine Henry (University of Namur, Belgium) presented insights from recent research on the role of migration for the left-behind rural communities in Ecuador. Second, Till Rockenbauch (University of Bonn, TransRe-Project, Germany) presented conceptual considerations and methodological approaches for addressing the role of translocal social networks vis-à-vis different capacities of resilience. Third, I presented the conceptual framework of DECCMA’s integrative model developed by Attila Lazar in Work Package 5. My talk provided insights into the modelling of household decisions under development in collaboration with Attila Lazar and Helen Adams using a Bayesian Belief Networks approach.

The audience discussed themes around policy and practical outcomes and the relationship between migration and resilience. The speakers debated the situation of migrants at destination areas including employment, housing and living conditions that allow or deny migrants to send remittances and decrease their level of vulnerability. The (in)ability of household members in sending areas to transform financial and social remittances into adaptive and transformative capacities was also discussed by both audience and panelists. The session was productive as it underlined the diversity of concepts, approaches and major challenges to be addressed by future research. It remains to be seen whether the various forms of population movements will become a more integral part of resilience and transformation research in the future.

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