Floating agriculture: a potential cleaner production technique for climate change adaptation and sustainable community development in Bangladesh

© 2015 Elsevier Ltd Global climate change is anticipated to intensify the vulnerability of Bangladesh (a low-lying country formed by the alluvial plain of the Ganges-Brahmaputra river systems) to floods and waterlogging, and therefore, the country needs to be equipped with adequate adaptation strategies, particularly those based on traditional knowledge and locally available materials. In this paper, we present a systematic and in-depth review of existing literature to examine the possibilities of indigenous floating agriculture as a technique for climate change adaptation and sustainable community development in Bangladesh. Our review indicates that the indigenous floating agriculture holds enough potential to help farming communities in the flood prone regions of Bangladesh to sustain lives and livelihoods during floods and long-term waterlogged conditions. This technique has a unique quality of providing a wide range of agricultural, environmental, economic, social and cultural benefits, which ultimately render it as an environmentally sound, economically feasible, and socially viable practice. Case studies on a number of promotional and experimental floating agriculture projects in different regions of Bangladesh revealed that the floating agriculture greatly supported farming communities to adapt to adverse waterlogged conditions by allowing vegetable production for daily consumption, income generation, community mobilization, and by increasing land-holding capacity. Along with providing food and nutrition security, this technique also strengthened the community capacity to grow and sustain agricultural practices in the subsequent floods and waterlogging conditions. Although this technique has a number of sustainability challenges as highlighted in this study, many of these are possible to overcome through proper planning and long-term management initiatives. We recommend policy implications and future research needs that could be effectively utilized to render this technique as a suitable tool for climate change adaptation and sustainable community development in Bangladesh.