

Axis System - Scenario Diagram

The future is uncertain. The future of a country as dynamic as Bangladesh is especially uncertain. Will the textile industry still form the mainstay of the Bangladeshi economy in 2050? In 2100? Will the Bangladeshi population grow to 200 million? To 250 million? Where will their food come from? Where will they live? Will climate change cause more droughts, more floods, or both? And what will upstream countries do? To draw up a robust plan for the future of the Bangladesh delta, It is not enough to look at what Bangladesh looks like today; Consideration must be given to future developments as well. That’s why Bangladesh Delta Plan works with scenarios, which outline what the possible futures are for the country.

Both future climate and socio-economic changes are inherently uncertain and cannot be predicted. Instead, research and expert judgment can provide a range of future projections. Therefore, in order to achieve the Delta vision, scenarios and flexible strategies have been developed to be able to deal with multiple futures. Scenarios based on the latest insights as collected in the Baseline Studies, play a central role in defining future adaptive strategies and creating an informed science-policy interface. Multiple scenarios provide the cornerstones for future development and allow us to test strategies for robustness, enabling policy makers to take informed decisions about an uncertain future.