Bangladesh is located on a delta where the combination of such factors as the monsoon rain and the enormous run-off from the Himalayan drainage system creates a characteristic hydrological zone which is often flooded.
In this region farmers have adapted well to such disadvantageous conditions for rice cultivation in the rainy season. In a village located on the fringe of a haor, farmers have selected suitable rice varieties for different flood types; historically, they had adopted boro rice for the main crop instead of the vulnerable broadcast aman rice in response to the change of the local hydrological environment.
The Bangladesh government invested considerable effort in the Flood Control, Drainage and/or Irrigation (FCD/I) project, under which more than several thousand embankments were built. Those embankments disturbed local hydrological conditions and, consequently, local people destroyed some of them to save their own lands and lives.
Serious losses and damage led subsequently to the implementation of the Flood Action Plan (FAP) in 1989. The concept of “living with flooding” has become widespread through the FAP, although the concept “flood control” was dominant at its initial stage.
The Compartmentalization Pilot Project (CPP) of the FAP has tried to manage flooding through people's participation. Due to a lack of representation of various strata in terms of organizational membership, however, conflicts over water use might recur between the agriculture and fishery sectors in the future.
