Biodiversity Conservation Plan of Bangladesh Regional Waterway Transport Project 1

There are hundreds of rivers in Bangladesh with a large network of navigation routes. Transportation through waterways has always been a natural, environment friendly and relatively cheap mode of transport. Inland waterways have become the very important mode not only for maintaining transport link between various remote parts of the country; it is a means of transporting export - import cargo as well. Over the decades the navigability during dry season in many rivers of the country has been deteriorating because of morphological processes and for withdrawal of water from the rivers beyond the border and within the country. The navigability has been further aggravated by poor or no maintenance of inland waterways. A total length of 12,000 km. of waterways during monsoon was estimated by NEDCO, The Netherlands Engineering Consultants. Currently, the total length of navigable waterways during monsoon is about 4,000 km and 2,000 - 2,500 km is navigable during the low water period (IUCN, 2012). 

The Government of Bangladesh has recently formulated sound Inland Waterway Transport (IWT) related policies which recognized to meet the poverty alleviation and to attain the millennium development goals, a well - developed sustainable and accessible multimodal transport network with special focus on inland navigation is of fundamental requirement for movement of people and goods. It is worthy to mention that the transport system of Bangladesh has changed substantially over the last four decades. Inland Water Transport is now playing an increasingly important role in the social and economic development of the country by maintaining communication between various remote parts of the country which are inaccessible by other modes of transport; particularly during the periods of peak monsoon. Over the decades transport demand in Bangladesh has grown faster than the GDP growth of the country. However, the shares of different transport modes particularly IWT and railway did not increase in the same proportion.

The Bangladesh Regional Waterway Transport Project 1 (Chattogram-Dhaka-Ashuganj Corridor) is the ‘Project’ by the Government of Bangladesh (GoB) to develop Inland Water Transport (IWT) sector and related infrastructure between Dhaka-Chattogram and Dhaka-Ashuganj River and linked corridors. The Project has three major components. Component-1 will include dredging and maintenance of the river corridors and ferry routes in the Project area through a performance-based contract over a period of about five years; and construction and maintenance of four Vessel Storm Shelters and two Idle Berthing Centers. Component- 2 includes construction and upgrading of six inland river ports (terminals) and rehabilitation/upgrading of fifteen landing stations (launch ghats) along these river corridors. Component 3 includes institutional capacity development measures, including civil works for retrofitting an existing training institution at Narayanganj and activities to improve the technical, operational and financial sustainability of the Inland Waterway sector.

A more comprehensive ecological baseline and detail biodiversity management plan is necessary and suggested in the ESIA for the project area. A longer-term biodiversity monitoring, based on indicator parameters during the project implementation phase is also envisaged. Therefore, Bangladesh Inland Water Transport Authority (BIWTA) has awarded EQMS Consulting Limited to provide Consultancy Services for Development, Management and Supervision of Biodiversity Conservation Plan. The main goal of this assignment is to prepare an in-depth biodiversity management plan for the project area and carry out biodiversity monitoring throughout the implementation phase.

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