Nature as Infrastructure: Evaluating the Wetlands in Bangladesh

Bangladesh, a lower middle-income country, is in the process of transitioning to an upper middle-income country. The Delta Plan 2100 envisages an upper middle-income status for Bangladesh and eradicating extreme poverty by 2031. Bangladesh is also the fifth most disaster-prone country in the world facing numerous natural disasters like floods, sea level rise, salinity, and cyclones (Parvin et al., 2022). Rapid urbanization has brought challenges to ground water, water quality that have severe implications on human health. To meet these ambitious targets while addressing the numerous challenges, Bangladesh requires significant investments in infrastructure services. While investment in traditional infrastructure is important, Bangladesh’s rich natural capital and biodiversity offer huge opportunity to invest in the naturally occurring ecosystems. Such investments may act as a solution to the challenges while serving as the engine of growth by generating co-benefits in the longer term.
This study will look at nature from an infrastructure point of view. Like traditional grey infrastructure, nature can also provide the services that cover disaster management, livelihood support in addition to providing co-benefits. Natural infrastructure would mean a naturally occurring system that requires targeted management that can provide benefits to the environment and human well-being (Roy, 2018). For example, mangroves provide services like flood mitigation, carbon sequestration and ecosystem conservation while providing livelihoods to the local population through fisheries.
The positive impact of mangroves as a nature-based solution (NBS) has been well documented.  Although mangroves form a large part of Bangladesh’s overall natural capital, the wetlands (Haors) deserve some attention in its role as natural infrastructure. One of the five goals mentioned in The Delta plan towards ensuring food security, economic growth and environmental sustainability is: “conservation and preservation of wetlands and ecosystems and promote their wise use”. The International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN) report documents the biodiversity of Tanguar Haor with the objective of familiarizing the local community and researchers on the importance of conservation of the wetland ecosystem (Alam et al., 2012).
The objective of this analysis is to make a case for wetlands as natural infrastructure that have the potential to generate services like that of any grey infrastructure. These services would include economic activities, social development, disaster mitigation, and most importantly sustaining the ecosystems which will have long terms co-benefits.

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