As the Padma Barrage Project is placed before the Executive Committee of the National Economic Council (ECNEC) for approval this week, an idea that has evolved since the 1960s may finally become a reality. The project, with phase-1 costing Tk 33,474 crore and requiring a total investment of Tk 50,443 crore over seven years, will serve 6.5 crore people across the southwestern and northern regions of the country. The 2.1-kilometre structure that can store 2,900 million cubic metres of water in the Padma River demonstrates Bangladesh’s engineering ambition and commitment to addressing water scarcity. The project is designed to address the crisis that five decades of India’s Farakka Barrage operation created.
However, it will also potentially accelerate sediment starvation, thus threatening our delta’s survival. As a geologist who witnessed the Mississippi Delta’s catastrophic land loss, I recognise this pattern and the urgency of choosing a different path.
The Farakka Barrage, commissioned in 1975 to divert Ganges water for Kolkata port, created a downstream catastrophe. A study by River and Delta Research Centre (RDRC) identifies 79 rivers as dead or dying in Bangladesh, while the state minister for shipping of the last Awami League government said in 2024 that 308 rivers have lost navigability. Khulna division has 25 dead or dying rivers, Rajshahi has 19, and Rangpur has 14; most of these rivers are dependent on the Ganges flows. The Padma, which has historically been a deep river, now runs almost dry from February to May in many stretches. The Gorai River, once carrying a significant portion of the dry-season flow of the Ganges to southwest Bangladesh, receives virtually nothing now.
Water starvation forced unsustainable groundwater dependence. In the Barind Tract, the groundwater level has dropped by 10 to 15 metres in many regions. The 2025 government notification prohibiting new irrigation wells in 4,911 villages across Rajshahi, Naogaon and Chapainawabganj acknowledges that extraction has become unsustainable. It was a politically difficult but necessary directive because continuing extraction will deplete aquifers beyond recovery.
The Padma Barrage responds to this crisis. It will store 2,900 million cubic metres for dry-season release, reviving the Gorai and Madhumati rivers and reducing salinity, which threatens the Sundarbans and the coastal regions. It will also help irrigate nearly 29 lakh hectares of farmland. These needs are legitimate and urgent, affecting millions dependent on water availability.
Yet, Professor Mashfiqus Salehin of Buet’s Institute of Water and Flood Management warns the barrage “may cause upstream erosion and downstream sedimentation, similar to the effects of Farakka Barrage.” Other experts, too, say that the barrage would exacerbate silting and destroy the Padma River. The reservoir will trap sediment travelling downstream towards coastal areas where it is desperately needed.
Delta physics are well-established: deltas exist in equilibrium between sediment deposition and land loss (subsidence and sea-level rise). When sediment delivery falls below land loss rates, deltas subside and drown. The Mississippi Delta loses one football field every 100 minutes because structures severed the sediment connection. The Nile stopped growing when the Aswan Dam trapped sediment.
A 2023 Nature Communications study examined sediment delivery to the Ganges-Brahmaputra Delta. The delta requires approximately one billion tonnes annually to counteract subsidence and sea-level rise. Climate change with more intense monsoons could increase sedimentation delivery by 34-60 percent, but if planned dams and river diversification are fully implemented, delivery could decline by 15-80 percent, leading to catastrophic land loss in the delta. The study concludes that the fate of the Ganges-Brahmaputra delta is contingent more on policymakers’ decisions than on climate change. Bangladesh still has the agency to prevent a Mississippi-scale catastrophe.
Coastal southwest Bangladesh has already lost 1 to 1.5 metres of elevation from sediment starvation. Studies project significant submersion by 2050-2100 if delivery continues declining. The Padma Barrage compounds this as sediment escaping the Farakka deposits in Padma’s reservoir, leaving coastal areas receiving even less.
The barrage is described as a “lifeline for the Sundarbans,” ensuring freshwater and preventing salinity that kills the mangroves. But the Sundarbans grows on land that is subsiding because of reduced sediment delivery. Providing water while cutting sediment creates a paradox. You cannot save a delta by providing water while cutting sediment that builds and maintains the land.
The objective of this article is not to argue against the Padma Barrage. Bangladesh’s water crisis requires a large-scale response. This article presents a case for a fundamentally different design that addresses water and sediment as an integrated challenge. Sediment bypass systems exist and operate successfully worldwide. The Priest Rapids Dam on Washington’s Columbia River was designed with a bypass to maintain downstream delivery. Similar approaches operate on the Rhine River in Germany, as well.
Sediment bypass tunnels at Padma would allow controlled passage of sediment-laden flows during monsoon, while storing clear water for dry-season release. This is established engineering that requires recognising sediment as an essential resource. It also demands that the 1996 Ganges Treaty, set to expire in December this year, and which fails to recognise the importance of sediments, be replaced with an agreement that ensures the delta’s survival. Building Tk 50,443 crore infrastructure to manage what the treaty was supposed to solve proves diplomatic failure. Therefore, any successor agreement must address sediment alongside water, require India’s dams to include bypass systems, and establish monitoring with penalties when infrastructure traps sediment beyond the minimum threshold. Bangladesh’s survival as a delta nation of 17 crore depends on sediment—the physical material maintaining land above sea level.
Internally, Bangladesh must manage received sediment effectively through channel re-excavation, distributary restoration, and controlled flooding, allowing the build-up of land. But even optimal internal management cannot compensate for 15-80 percent upstream loss.
The Padma Barrage demonstrates that Bangladesh possesses the capacity to implement large-scale infrastructure when survival demands it. The question is whether that framework enables solutions that take into account delta physics—both water and sediment—rather than forcing choices, solving one crisis while accelerating another. The window narrows once construction begins. The science is clear. The engineering is proven. What is required is political will to demand treaty transformation as well as internal action. The alternative is repeating Mississippi’s trajectory: catastrophic land loss that restoration may arrive too late to prevent.
Dr Ahad Chowdhury is a geologist with vast experience in environmental regulation in the US. He currently teaches at Jefferson Community and Technical College in Louisville, Kentucky.
Views expressed in this article are the author's own.
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