Vulnerability of Forest Ecosystems of Bangladesh to Climate Change

Abstract

Bangladesh is endowed with a number of natural forest ecosystems including inland Sal forest, dipterocarp forest, savanna, bamboo bushes in the hilly regions and freshwater swamp forests. It also have littoral mangrove ecosystems. An attempt was made to qualitatively analyse the impact of climate change on forest resources of Bangladesh.

It was found that increased rainfall during monsoon would cause increased runoff in forest floor instead of infiltration into the soil. As a result there would be enhanced soil erosion from the forest floor. The erosion problem would be more pronounced in poorly dense hill forest areas. Prolonged floods would severely affect growth of many timber species, while it would cause high incidence of mortality for Artocarpus species. In contrast, enhanced evapotranspiration in winter would cause increased moisture stress, especially in the Barind and Madhupur Tract areas, affecting the Sal forest ecosystem. The tea plantations in the north-east would also suffer due to moisture stress. It was found that the Sundarbans mangrove forest would be the worst victim of climate change. Due to a combination of high evapotranspiration and low-flow in winter, the salinity of the soil would increase. As a result the growth of freshwater loving species would be severely affected. Eventually the species offering dense canopy cover would be replaced by non-woody shrubs and bushes, while the overall forest productivity would decline significantly. The degradation of forest quality might cause a gradual depletion of rich diversity of the forest flora and fauna of the Sundarbans ecosystem.