Bangladesh is very much flood-prone, and there are many communities that are entirely exposed and vulnerable even in the time of modest flood events. A lot of people in the area have to evacuate their houses with their cattle and take shelter to other distant places.
But the “CORE Bangladesh” research project of BUET is testing new technologies that enable the people to stay in their houses with all the belongings even with rising floodwater into their premises.
The project has produced and implemented different small-scale Dutch flood proofing technologies with the local context of Bangladesh. Amphibious House and Retrofitted Floor are consequential innovations in the study field of Ranigram village of Khokshabari, Sirajganj, Bangladesh, which aim to increase the capacity and resilience for flood risk management.
The Amphibious House is built on land but it can also float in water, with anchor running up the sides of the home to eliminate the possibility of horizontal movement. Just like boat docks rise when the water level changes, the Amphibious House is designed to welcome the water in, and gradually increase and down. This concept is based on the principle of buoyancy. A buoyant foundation allows the house to sit just above the ground under normal conditions, but allow to rise and float safely on the water when there is a flood.
Construction material used mainly for the amphibious base is Expanded Polystyrene (EPS). EPS is a lightweight cellular plastic material consisting of small spherical balls. And the superstructure is made of Tin-shade house. Sirajganj Polytechnic Institute and SHARP (Local NGO) are the local partners in implementing the technology. Local people, students and mechanics were involved at different levels of design, planning, implementation to make the technology more-feasible, user-friendly and ensure community participation.
When flooding occurs, the flotation blocks lift the house. The anchoring system keeps the house from going anywhere except straight up and down on top of the water.
In the Retrofitted Floor technology, the existing muddy floor is retrofitted by putting a wooden floor on top of it. Below the wooden floor layers of reused plastic bottles and pipes are arranged. When floodwater enters into the room, it uplifts the plastic bottles as the cap of the bottles is closed, and it functions as hollow vessels. The uplifting force of the bottles is transferred upward to the floor, and so the wooden floor floats with all the arrangements and the household furniture.
The effectiveness of flood-risk management depends on effective stakeholder coordination through governance arrangements developed over many years of coping with floods. In the CORE Bangladesh research project, this process has been applied on a shortened time scale and aims to develop coordinating capabilities in flood-risk management.
This project is funded by the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO), where academic and research partners are Institute of Water and Flood Management (IWFM), BUET,IHE-Delft, Delft University of Technology and research company HKV. Currently, the research partners are analyzing and researching the long-term sustainability of these flood resilience technologies in Bangladesh.
The performance of these pilot technologies and the fruitfulness that the users gained, have attracted a lot of people. It has generated interests of flood-affected people in adopting this technologies. The upscaling of these technologies in flood-prone areas will create a scope in living with floods and will enhance the community flood resilience in long-run.
(Engr. Ashik Iqbal is Research Assistant, CORE Bangladesh project, Institute of Water and Flood Management, BUET and Engr. Nadia Nowshin, PhD Fellow, CORE Bangladesh project, Institute of Water and Flood Management, BUET).
