Bangladesh: Improving highways resilience to landslides

The programme aims to identify and prioritise future climate and seismic resilient investments in transportation assets affected by landslides in Sylhet and Chittagong hill tracts districts in Bangladesh.

IMC has been appointed by the World Bank to assist the Governments of Bangladesh to determine their climate risks based upon precipitation, geology, land use, population density and poverty levels.

The 10-month project will assess the climate threat of the priority roads including bridges through risk modelling.

IMC, in partnership with the Center for Environmental and Geographic Information Services, will identify the highest impact and hotspot areas.

Once the priority hotspots are identified, detailed site-specific risk assessments will be undertaken, and detailed planning process will be conducted with the relevant specialised agencies.

The hotspots will be established through reviewing historical evidence on the landscape over time, rainfall data, hydrologic pattern, traffic volume and use by the local communities.

The programme will target all national and regional highways including, zila roads, upazilla roads, union and village roads in the Sylhet and Chittagong hill tracts regions and municipal roads within the Chittagong and Sylhet City Corporation areas.

A resiliency plan will be developed through a consultation with all relevant stakeholders.