Trends in Water Level and Flooding in Dhaka, Bangladesh and Their Impact on Mortality

Insa Thiele-Eich, Katrin Burkart and Clemens Simmer
Additional contact information
Insa Thiele-Eich: Meteorological Institute, University Bonn, Auf dem Huegel 20, D-53121 Bonn, Germany
Katrin Burkart: Climatology Laboratory, Geography Institute, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Unter den Linden 6, D-10099 Berlin, Germany
Clemens Simmer: Meteorological Institute, University Bonn, Auf dem Huegel 20, D-53121 Bonn, Germany

IJERPH, 2015, vol. 12, issue 2, 1-20

Abstract: Climate change is expected to impact flooding in many highly populated coastal regions, including Dhaka (Bangladesh), which is currently among the fastest growing cities in the world. In the past, high mortality counts have been associated with extreme flood events. We first analyzed daily water levels of the past 100 years in order to detect potential shifts in extremes. A distributed lag non-linear model was then used to examine the connection between water levels and mortality. Results indicate that for the period of 2003–2007, which entails two major flood events in 2004 and 2007, high water levels do not lead to a significant increase in relative mortality, which indicates a good level of adaptation and capacity to cope with flooding. However, following low water levels, an increase in mortality could be found. As our trend analysis of past water levels shows that minimum water levels have decreased during the past 100 years, action should be taken to ensure that the exposed population is also well-adapted to drought.

Keywords: water level; flooding; mortality; climate change; extreme value theory; Bangladesh (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/12/2/1196/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/12/2/1196/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:12:y:2015:i:2:p:1196-1215:d:44998

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().