Can Crumbling Himalayas Protect Bangladesh From Rising Seas?
By Andrew C. Revkin

Scientists in Bangladesh have been reappraising forecasts of eventual inundation of sprawling, crowded delta regions as seas rise in a warming world. According to several reports, a fresh satellite analysis shows that new lands formed by sediment carried from the crumbling Himalayas are adding to Bangladesh's land area - at least for now.

As wire stories circulated overnight, I sent out some queries to sea-level experts and will report back on how this battle between new sediment and rising seas will play out.

Sediment from rivers is adding land area to Bangladesh. Can this counter rising seas?

Sea level is not uniform globally. Juneau, Alaska, is rising, for instance. The land there is rebounding, freed of the weight of ice-age glaciers. When I visited Juneau last year, biologists told me that a fight is brewing over whether protected coastal wetlands should no longer be protected once they are dry. (Coastal property owners say the new land is theirs.)

The fate of Bangladesh's lowlands will be determined by a mix of changes in the height of the Indian Ocean, subsidence of deltas as aquifers are drained and newly deposited sediments compress, and the addition of all that Himalayan soil.

In checking out the news from Bangladesh, I noticed that the Dutch have been advising Bangladeshis to do as the Dutch do - use engineering to work with the flow of sediment and accelerate the accretion of new lands. A recent article in The New Nation - "Can Bangladesh Trap Silt?" - is worth a look. All of this serves as a useful reminder that humans are not some static element in the climate puzzle, but a dynamic, responsive and innovative one - at least once a human community gets a strong signal that action is needed.

When I wrote with James Kanter last year about the report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change on impacts from global warming, I made sure we noted how the consequences for humans change significantly when adaptation is taken into account (boldface added):

Without such adaptations, it said, a rise of 3 to 5 degrees Fahrenheit over the next century could lead to the inundation of coasts and islands inhabited by hundreds of millions of people. But if steady investments are made in seawalls and other coastal protections, vulnerability could be sharply reduced.
Bangladesh has already proved to be one of the world's most resilient countries in the face of flood threats, as Secretary General Ban Ki-moon pointed out here. It sounds as if the country is getting geared up to find ways to exploit the eroding Himalayas as a way to counter the erosion of its coasts.

Adaptation can buy time and cut losses in the short run. But in the end, many experts note that unabated greenhouse-gas emissions essentially mean there will be no new normal climate or coastline to adapt to - in Bangladesh or anywhere else.