TRANSCEND Seminar: Climate change impacts on agriculture
Climate change impacts on agriculture with Prof. Md. Anwarul Abedin, Bangladesh Agricultural University
OVERVIEW
Bangladesh is a densely populated country with a high dependence on agriculture. The country is significantly vulnerable to climate change impacts and many parts of the country are affected thus impacting upon the large number of people engaged in agriculture.
Some of the recent climate change impacts facing Bangladesh are declining rainfall, prolonged heatwaves and the sea level rising. Some areas in the country face droughts and extensive water scarcity and salinity problems. The existing groundwater-dependent surface irrigation systems are not sustainable in the drought and salinity prone areas. The western parts and drought-prone areas of the country will be at greater risk from droughts because the mean temperature is projected to rise by 1.0 – 1.4°C during 2046–2065. The variation in rainfall patterns due to the negative impact of climate change may also increase the frequency of droughts up to 50 – 70% in the eastern part of the country. Hence this is an evolving emergency in the country due to the significant impact on food production.
The presentation will highlight how a proposed irrigation solution will enable them to achieve local level adaptations using infrastructure and solar power and also how they intend to minimize water loss as well as how the initiative will contribute to energy savings. Further, the presentation will touch upon how they engage with small local agriculture-based community groups through co-creation and co-management to make the approach more sustainable. The active participation of the local communities in the drought and saline prone areas helps not only to increase agricultural productivity but also to ensure that they are in line with meeting some of the global challenges such as food security in the country.
SPEAKER
Prof. Md. Anwarul Abedin is a Professor of agricultural science and environmental management. He has a PhD from Kyoto University in Japan. He has undertaken extensive research into water resource management, water quality assessment, risk assessment and community mapping, resilience indexing, community based CCA adaptation and DRR issues, climate smart coastal agriculture and food security, climate change and agricultural vulnerability assessment soil health issues.
He has over 18 years’ experience in teaching and research in the field of agriculture and environmental science. He played a leading role in the preparation of a National Science and Technology Plan for DRR and co-led a policy review on Climate Change Education (CCE) and Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) in Bangladesh supported by UNESCO, Paris. He has also been a Consultant for JICA on ICT and flash flooding and training workers. He was also part of the group that prepared the National Watershed Policy Formulation for the Government of Bangladesh supported by IUCN and FAO.
AGENDA
Please note: all times are based on UK times. Please adjust to your local geographic time zone.
10: 00 am: Event open
10.05 am: Event start
10.45 am: Q & A
11.15 am: Close
Photo by Dan Meyers on Unsplash.
