Koyra area of southwest Bangaldesh. Rice fields in the area are in danger of being flooded by brackish water pushed along the rivers by cyclones from the Bay of Bengali. Saline water poisons the soil and renders it infertile.
Local farms are protected from flooding by embarkments made mostly from clay-like soil that is prevalent in the area. Yet, locals live in a constant fear of cyclones that periodically form in this coastal area and destroy the embarkments. Climate change-related warming of oceans and increasingly unpredictable and violent weather continues to push saline water further inland sometimes also polluting local supplies of drinking water. Some locals walk 2 miles to the nearest well with drinkable water, a task that takes at least an hour a day.
July 12, 2017.
Photo by Frank Sedlar and Marcin Szczepanski/Sinking Cities Project