Nearly 86 per cent of haor regions in the country have been filled up in the last 32 years.
Inzamamul Haque and Maria Mehrin, two students of Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET), and Institute of Planning and Development (IPD) carried out a survey by analysing the satellite images of 1988, 1994, 2000, 2006, 2013 and 2020.
The report says the total area of haor in Bangladesh was about 3,034 square kilometers in 1988, which decreased by 86.6 per cent to 406 square kilometers in 2020.
Adil Mohammad Khan said, “Haor can contain surplus rainwater. Due to the connection with rivers, the water of the haor naturally flows into the river. But construction of infrastructures including roads and filling up of haors have destroyed the natural process of containing rainwater in last few decades.”
Apart from preventing floods, the haors are significant in many other ways. It is not only the repository of fish and crops but also a hub of biodiversity. Besides, haors regions extract carbon dioxide. So if we cannot protect our haors, then the massive disaster will ravage the area in the future, he added.
