SAARC and the need for deep sea port

At the dawn of this century it has been realised and recognised by everyone's neighbours in this region and worldwide that almost every natural, social, political, environmental, cultural and economic aspect is virtually transboundary; the best experienced examples being water, terrorism, information and media, trade and commerce, culture and heritage, disasters, epidemic and the climate change impacts. Realisation is axiomatically the precedence through actions to achievement. The surging unionism as such is becoming more and more inevitable for nations, small or big, across the world.

Slashing of barriers by entering into Free Trade Agreement by the South-Asian countries has been emphasised upon by the leaders of the region for injecting energies into the economy. Economy, cooperation, trade and ports are interdependent. At this point of illuminating regional cooperation, the techno-economic feasibility study for developing a deep-sea port on commercial basis in Bangladesh has been initiated that very timely fits in the summit vision. The objective is to emphasise upon diversifying nation's economy. The development of the deep sea port shall act as a driver for accelerated regional economic growth and employment opportunity. The study as it appears from the Terms of Reference (ToR) stresses upon the non-structural dimensions including carrying out the technical studies and will, identify the most advantageous site for establishing the port. The pre-feasibility level locations of the proposed port are Sonadia Island and Cox's Bazar on the north-east and, Akram Point on the north-west of the Bay of Bengal, one of the world's 64 large marine ecosystems.

The ports where the land meets the sea are probably the most ancient institutions that triggered the regional and global economy by establishing link between inland and marine transport. Bangladesh has two sea ports, Chittagong in the south-east and Mongla in the south-west. History reveals that the nation's coastal waterfronts had been greatly used for over 2,500 years for the purpose of trade with other parts of the world. The Yemeni and the Arab traders of Babylon of ancient time used to trade with Greece, Macedonia and in the east with India, Java, Sumatra and China. Malayan history bears that the greatest sailor Buddha Gupta sailed from Chittagong Port to Malaya in the 4th century BC. The current version of the ports, incompatible to changing coastal hydro-morphology, faces innumerable problems of handling the sea going vessels.

Bangladesh's coast is hydrologically aggressive and prone to extreme cataclysms. The Bay receives large inflows of freshwater and sediment from rivers whose discharges heavily influence the dynamics of the ecosystem, particularly the coastal lands and waters. The Bay and its resources are indifferent to man-made boundaries, but are sensitive to man-made influences with approximately 400 million in its catchment areas. The living geometry of the coast changes its images on day-to-day basis and is highly sensitive to hydraulic parameters.

The Ganges-Brahmaputra-Meghna system tributaried by 54 trans-boundary rivers constitutes 93 percent of Bangladesh's total inflow and, the rest 7 percent is generated within the country chiefly from annual average rainfall of 2300 mm. And again, 96 percent of the total flow is conveyed out to the ocean by the Meghna estuary alone and the remaining 4 percent by other 28 smaller outfalls, mostly on the south-west coast. The system discharge varies from 10,000 m³/s during dry-season to more than 100,000 m³/s during the wet. The annual sediment discharge ranges between 0.5 billion to 1.8 billion tons. The 710 km long coast constitutes of several sediment cells to accommodate the down-rush of freshwater and sediment transportation.

The principal reasons for developing a deep sea port despite the existing two at Chittagong and Mongla are the hydro-morphological constraints barring the trade for which the lightening of the mother vessels at the outer anchorage becomes necessary. Climate change induced dwindling upland flow from the Himalayan rivers will result in saltwater intrusion further landward with the increasing sea level rise and will cause increased siltation in the coast as already seen in the south-west compared to that in the south-east. The proposed deep sea port will be designed chiefly to remove these technical problems. The location of the proposed deep sea port being thought at the Bay of Bengal may appear similar to that of the Gwader on the Lasbela coast at the Arabian Sea in Pakistan planned for construction by the Chinese assistance, in terms of its location off-main shipping line and the hinterland but to be borne in mind that those are largely differently characterised by their unique coastal hydro-morphology.

The complete development of a deep sea port may require 30-40 years after its ground breaking to become fully operational. During this period there is likely to be great change in the physiographic features across the coast depending on the status of macro-level management of the nation's water resources that includes detention, diversion and drainage of the freshwater flowing into the saltwater. Water globally labeled as the engine for the economic growth is the liquid software that keeps the ports' hardware operating. The planning of a deep sea port therefore will remain largely interlinked with the integration of freshwater flow from beyond the boundaries and, therefore dependent on regional cooperation.

The foreign consultants are due to submit their proposal for the study at the end of this year. The Ministry of Shipping will be responsible for overviewing the study. The approach and methodology of the study report may focus on exploring the Saarc potential particularly in analyzing the hydro-morphological aspects of the coast for selection of a sustainable location. National experts outside may compliment the investigation by tapping cooperation potential of the summit declaration.

Md Saeedur Rahman is a retired Chief Engineer of BWDB.