Enhancing the Coastal Resilience of the Sundarbans using Ecotourism as a Design tool
Open Access
- Author:
- Hani, Umme
- Graduate Program:
- Architecture
- Degree:
- Master of Science
- Document Type:
- Master Thesis
- Date of Defense:
- November 07, 2019
- Committee Members:
- Lisa Domenica Iulo, Thesis Advisor/Co-Advisor
Dk Osseo-Asare, Committee Member
Carter A Hunt, Committee Member
Mehrdad Hadighi, Program Head/Chair - Keywords:
- coastal resilience
ecotourism
coastal resilience planning
mangrove ecotourism
Sundarbans
interdisciplinary planning approach
coastal vulnerabilities
coastal architecture
climate-adaptive architecture
resilient architecture - Abstract:
- A large fraction of the world population resides in coastal areas. However, coastal regions are extremely vulnerable because of their susceptibility to climatic disasters and heightened impacts of sea-level rise. This puts coastal communities, infrastructure, and the economy at risk, making coastal resilience planning a major concern worldwide. Nested in systems-thinking, coastal resilience planning can help address the coastal vulnerabilities by building the ability of the community to ‘bounce back’ after hazardous events. This is essential for a country like Bangladesh, which is at increased risk because of its geographical location, topography and monsoon climate. The coastal defense interventions in Bangladesh represent siloed efforts that need to be tied holistically through coastal resilience planning. One way to approach this would be to support conservation of the Sundarbans Mangrove Forest (SMF), which acts as a natural buffer by attenuating waves offshore and reducing the impacts from strong winds. SMF, at present, is in decline due to various anthropogenic pressures such as forest-resources based livelihood of coastal communities, tourism impacts, pollution, etc. Ecotourism is a neo-liberal intervention that has had a significant contribution towards the conservation of natural resources around the world. This research investigates how ecotourism can be used as a mechanism to help support the conservation of SMF, thus contributing to the overall coastal resilience. Past literature shows investigations into ecotourism as a means of conserving natural resources including mangroves. This research goes beyond this and seeks to investigate how ecotourism can be used as a mechanism to improve coastal resilience through the conservation of mangroves. Findings from the review of the literature show that these two disciplines are rooted in common core values and target their strategies into four common areas-Sustainable built environment, Nature-centric interventions, Community livelihood, and wellbeing and Collaborative planning & design. This overlap in the two disciplines is an interesting revelation that is explored in this research to integrate coastal resilience and ecotourism strategies into a unified planning framework. The “Coastal Resilience with Ecotourism” (CRE) framework will enable ecotourism planning in a way that can achieve coastal resilience benefits. The CRE framework is further adapted for a mangrove context, guided by a thorough literature review of mangroves. Finally, as a validation of the framework and as a means of exemplifying its application, the framework is applied to an actual site, Munshiganj, in SMF. Using the framework as a guide and as a decision support tool, recommendations are made that can help improve an existing ecotourism business in Munshiganj into one that can achieve coastal resilience benefits. The framework is especially beneficial because it helps generate design goals that stem from the underlying issues in the region’s natural environment and socio-economic stratum. The framework then guides the design process on aspects such as site selection, sustainable & climate-adaptive architecture and resilient landscaping that overall ensure resilience in the coastal built environment. Integrating these two disciplines will not only prevent redundancy in resources but will also maximize resilience benefits through adapting a unique planning guide. With mangroves depleting across the world at an alarming rate, natural coastal defenses are getting weak. Adopting a “Coastal Resilience with Ecotourism” (CRE) framework will help support mangrove conservation and approach coastal resilience planning holistically.