Saturday, May 22, 2010

How will a beach in Bangladesh respond to predicted climate change?

The Daily Star (Bangladesh): Kuakata, locally known as Sagar Kannya (daughter of the sea) is located in the southwest of Bangladesh. Next to Cox's Bazar it is the second most famous sea beach of this country. And Kuakata is one of the rarest sea beaches of the world, which has a rare scenic beauty offering the full view of the rising and setting of crimson sun in the water of the Bay of Bengal. This 30 km long and 03 km wide beach has a typical natural setting and sandy as gently sloping into the Bay of Bengal.

…Kuakata is a unique example of co-occurrence of different ecosystems. There are remnants of mangroves in this beach. The line of coconut trees has increased the scenic beauty of this seashore. The nearby Fatra and Gangamati mangrove forests (part of Sundarbans) have enriched the biodiversity of this territory. The tamarisk (Jhou) forests have added more attraction to this beach.

….Sea level rise, increased salinity and inundation will change the forest's nature. One-metre rise of sea level will destroy the whole ecosystem. Shrub-land and dune vegetation will be submerged. The occasionally distributed pioneer species Sundari will be totally replaced by Keora and Gewa. The mixed stands will be converted into pure stands and old grown forests will be changed into new successional forests. Sundari, Kakra and Pashur will be highly vulnerable even in low level sea rise (8-9cm/100 years) while, they will be extinct from these ecosystems in medium level sea rise (9-12cm/100 years)….

Kuakata in Bangladesh, shot by Faisal Tariq, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 3.0 License

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