The levee effect along the Jamuna River in Bangladesh

ABSTRACT

The levee effect refers to the paradox that the construction of a levee to protect from flooding might induce property owners to invest more in their property, increasing the potential damages should the levee breach. Thus, paradoxically, the levee might increase flood risk. The levee effect was observed for high-income countries. We analyze whether it can also be observed in a low-income country, Bangladesh. In the Jamuna floodplain different levels of flood protection have existed alongside each other since the 1960s, so their effects can be compared.

KEYWORDS:

• Levee effect
• flood risk management
• economic development
• Bangladesh

Acknowledgments

This article contributes to the EU COST Action Network LAND4FLOOD: Natural Flood Retention on Private Land (CA16209, http://www.land4flood.eu>http://www.land4flood.eu).http://www.land4flood.eu).

Data availability statement

Data are available from Md Ruknul Ferdous on request.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Supplementary Data

Supplementary data for this article can be accessed at here.

Additional information

Funding

This research was funded by NWO-WOTRO under grant W 07.69.110, ‘Hydro-Social Deltas: Understanding Flows of Water and People to Improve Policies and Strategies for Disaster Risk Reduction and Sustainable Development of Delta Areas in the Netherlands and Bangladesh’. Giuliano Di Baldassarre was supported by the European Research Council within the project ‘HydroSocialExtremes: Uncovering the Mutual Shaping of Hydrological Extremes and Society’ [ERC Consolidator Grant, no. 761678]. Luigia Brandimarte was supported by the Swedish Strategic research programme StandUP for Energy.