Erosion along the Padma River is swallowing homes, schools, mosques and farmland in Chapainawabganj, leaving thousands of families displaced, according to local representatives and residents (Dhaka Tribune, 2026b). A local chairman said about 500 families in Panka and nearby areas have lost their homes, and many have taken shelter on other people’s land. Some families have moved eight to ten times in four years.
The problem is national. Over five decades, the Jamuna, Ganges and Padma have eroded 1,585 square kilometres of land, a net loss of about 1,153 square kilometres after new chars emerged, according to government data cited by The Daily Star. The Centre for Environmental and Geographic Information Services (CEGIS) estimates roughly 1,000 people are displaced for every square kilometre lost. Many end up in Dhaka slums such as Bholar Basti, home to more than 30,000 people, mostly displaced from Bhola (The Daily Star, 2026). Research cited by The Climate Watch puts average annual land loss at 8,700 hectares and direct displacement at 100,000 to 200,000 people a year (Hasan, 2026).
Why does this matter for peace? When thousands of families need land and shelter at once, pressure can fall on host communities. Researchers from the Netherlands-based Clingendael Institute and India’s Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies warned in 2022 that climate-linked migration, land loss, and displacement could intensify conflict along the Bay of Bengal coast (Dhaka Tribune, 2022). The report cited episodes of violence between agricultural and shrimp farmers in Khulna over salinisation of water, and warned that migration from coastal belts could feed unplanned urban growth, tension and crime. It also noted local protests against Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh (Dhaka Tribune, 2022). The reports from Chapainawabganj describe hardship, not violence. The challenge is keeping it that way as COP31 opens in Antalya, Turkey, on 9 November, with loss and damage on the agenda (Republic of Türkiye Ministry of Environment, Urbanisation and Climate Change, n.d.).
Three approaches stand out in recent reporting and project records.
1. Count the displaced, so help is fair. The Daily Star argued that Bangladesh needs a reliable national database of erosion-displaced people so they can reach housing, social protection and livelihood support (The Daily Star, 2026). A local example exists. In Satkhira, a joint survey by the municipality and the NGO Uttaran counted 10,133 families who had moved to the town over 22 years because of disasters, about 84 percent of them after losing homes to erosion, storm surges and salinity (Dhaka Tribune, 2026a). An EU-funded project run by Educo International and Uttaran aims to help slum dwellers there, mostly women, earn their own income through skills and support (European Commission, n.d.).
2. Connect communities and authorities. The same project also worked on the link between communities and the state. UNOPS reports that villagers in southwest Bangladesh formed resilience committees, repaired roads and fortified embankments, and that the project strengthened ties between communities and government systems (UNOPS, 2025).
3. Recognize losses money cannot replace. Erosion also takes graveyards, memories and neighborhood ties. Civil servant and researcher Galib Mahmud Pasha notes that the UN Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement protect access to ancestral graves, yet Bangladesh offers no such safeguards (Pasha, 2025). Writing in Prothom Alo, Shahiduzzaman argues that repeated disasters weaken social cohesion and sharpen competition over land, water and aid. He urges Bangladesh to seek climate finance that also supports mental health services, cultural preservation and community rehabilitation (Shahiduzzaman, 2026).
Everyday solidarity matters too. Rafi Ahmed, from Chilmari in Kurigram, comes from a family displaced by the Brahmaputra for decades. He says losing a home means losing “land, livelihood and memories along with it.” His family relied on local residents rather than institutions for help (Hasan, 2026).
Limits and challenges. None of this is a quick fix. Ahmed says embankments have reduced erosion in parts of his area, but damaged sections let it resume elsewhere (Hasan, 2026). The Daily Star notes that the Bangladesh Water Development Board mainly places sand-filled geobags, often when homes are already threatened (The Daily Star, 2026). Pasha reported in 2025 that the national displacement action plan’s promised National Committee on Displacement did not exist, and that its pledge of trauma centres set no referral pathways (Pasha, 2025). Public descriptions of the Satkhira project focus on livelihoods, services and links with authorities, not measured effects on conflict (UNOPS, 2025).
For displaced families in Chapainawabganj, the immediate need is shelter. The longer-term question is whether counting, connecting and recognising loss can be built into the response before tension replaces solidarity.
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Keywords: Bangladesh, displaced, displacement, peace, river, Ganges, Padma, Jamuna, river, floods, flooding, farmers, shrimp, agriculture, conflict, land conflict, conflict resolution, Bengal, Bay of Bengal
Md. Masum Billah is a Lecturer in the department of anthropology at Shahjalal University of
Science and Technology (SUST), Sylhet, Bangladesh, where he has served since October 2025.
He holds both a Bachelor of Social Science (2016–2020) and a Master of Social Science
(2021–2022) in Anthropology from SUST, and was awarded the Peter Haore & Mushtaq
Rahman Scholarship by the department in 2021.
Before joining the faculty, he worked as a Research Assistant in SUST's Department of
Architecture (2024–2025), and earlier completed an internship with Friends in Village
Development Bangladesh (FIVDB) in 2020, gaining exposure to community-oriented
development work.
His academic and research interests span several applied areas of anthropology, including public
health and medical anthropology, business anthropology, climate change and environment,
indigenous and marginalized community issues, migration and diaspora, political anthropology,
and visual media and culture. At SUST, he teaches courses such as Fundamentals of
Anthropology, Migration and Diaspora, Political Anthropology, and Visual Media&Culture,
reflecting this broad range of interests.
