High Level Conference on Climate Change

September 8, 2008 - A high level conference on the impacts of climate change on Bangladesh will meet in London on September 10, 2008.

The goal of the conference is to highlight that the people of Bangladesh are already living with climate change and why tackling climate change is critical to sustain progress made towards achieving the Millennium Development Goals. The conference will also highlight the need for an agreement on global emissions reduction.

Bangladesh and Climate Change

Bangladesh is trapped between the Himalayas in the north and the encroaching Bay of Bengal to the south. Bangladesh is most vulnerable to natural disasters due to the frequency of extreme climate events and its high population density. Floods are frequent and cause the greatest economic and human losses to the country. The flooding problems are exacerbated by sediment transported by three major rivers- the Ganges, Brahmaputra and Meghna.

Climate change poses significant risks for Bangladesh. The impacts of higher temperatures, more variable precipitation, more extreme weather events, and sea level rise are already felt in Bangladesh and will continue to intensify. The impacts result not only from gradual changes in temperature and sea level but also, in particular, from increased climate variability and extreme events, including more intense floods, droughts, and storms.

These changes are already having major impacts on the economic performance of Bangladesh and on the lives and livelihoods of millions of poor people.

Impact on Bangladesh

In Bangladesh, climate change will affect many sectors, including water resources, agriculture and food security, ecosystems and biodiversity, human health and coastal zones.

- Many environmental and developmental problems will be exacerbated by climate change.- Predicted rainfall increases, particularly during the summer monsoon, could increase flood-prone areas in Bangladesh.- Crop yields are predicted to fall by up to 30 per cent, creating a very high risk of hunger.- Predicted temperature increase will cause the melting of glaciers in the Himalayas.

In the short term, the global warming increases risk of flooding, erosion, mudslides during the wet season. In the longer term, global warming could lead to disappearance of many glaciers that feed many rivers in South Asia.

Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)

Bangladesh has already achieved one of the key Millennium Development Goals (MDG) - gender parity in primary and secondary schooling. The country is on track to achieve most of the MDG goals, even the difficult ones like infant and maternal mortality by 2015.

However, the predicted adverse impacts due to global warming could reverse the recent economic and social gains. The progress towards achieving the MDGs, such as eradicating poverty, combating communicable diseases and ensuring environmental sustainability could be in jeopardy.

Agriculture Growth & Poverty

Agricultural growth is especially effective in reducing poverty. Estimates show that overall GDP growth originating in agriculture is, on average, at least twice as effective in benefiting the poorest half of a country’s population as growth generated in nonagricultural sectors. In sum, agricultural growth can reduce

poverty directly, by raising farm incomes, and indirectly, through labor markets and by reducing food prices.

Impact of Climate Change on Agriculture

It is predicted that climate change could have devastating impact on agriculture. Agriculture is a key economic driver in Bangladesh, accounting for nearly 20 percent of the GDP and 65 percent of the labor force. The performance of this sector has considerable influence on overall growth, the trade balance, and the level and structure of poverty and malnutrition.

Moreover, much of the rural population, especially the poor, is reliant on the agriculture as a critical source of livelihoods and employment.

The impacts of climate change could affect agriculture in Bangladesh in many ways:

- The predicted sea-level rise will threaten valuable coastal agricultural land, particularly in low-lying areas.- Biodiversity would be reduced in some of the most fragile environments, such as sunder bans and tropical forests.- Climate unpredictability will make planning of farm operations more difficult.

The effects of these impacts will threaten food security for the most vulnerable people of Bangladesh. The country’s agriculture sector is already under stress from lack of productivity and population growth. Any further attempt to increase productivity will likely to add pressure to available land and water resources.

World Bank Role

The 2007 floods and Cyclone Sidr which claimed several thousand lives in Bangladesh were reminders that climate change is already beginning to have an impact. The Bank’s response has been to significantly scale up its activity on adapting to and mitigating climate change. It is providing assistance and advocacy in urban development, rural areas, coastal zone and ecosystem management. The Bank is also working with various partners to help develop a major disaster preparedness program for the country.

Poorest Most Affected by Climate Change

November 28, 2007 - The poorest of the poor in South Asia are the most impacted by climate change, says a World Bank climate change expert.

Speaking ahead of the UN Climate Change Conference in Bali on December 3-14, 2007, Richard Damania, World Bank Senior Environmental Economist for the South Asia Region, said it is the poorest that are living in areas most vulnerable to climate change.

“We are going to see the wet parts of South Asia become wetter causing flooding and affecting more people. We will also see the arid areas getting drier. This will hurt the poor the most,” Damania said.

Damania said South Asia is going to face vast problems with climate change and that this is related to poverty and the very varied climate and geography in the region. “You have got some of the coldest parts of the world and you have got some of the hottest parts of the world.”

The impacts of higher temperatures, more extreme weather events such as floods, cyclone, severe drought, and sea level rise are already felt in South Asia and will continue to intensify, Damania said. “These changes are already having a major impact on the economic performance of South Asian countries.”

Analysis on the impact of Climate Change in South Asia

Richard Damania, Senior Environmental Economist for South Asia Region, discussess about the impact of Climate Change in South Asia.

Richard Damania

- The likely impact on South Asia from Climate Change (30s) wmv

- Do you see signs of Climate Change in South Asia? (41s) wmv

- The South Asia region is a low-intensity producer of carbon dioxide. But several reports predict the region will be one of the most affected in the World. Can you explain this paradox? (1m:15s) wmv

- Recent reports suggest that India could see a drop of 30-40% in agriculture productivity? What role can the World Bank play in mitigating this risk? (1m:09s) wmv

- Has the World Bank implemented climate change as a variable in development operations in the region? (1m:01s) wmv

Growth & Climate Change

The South Asia region is a low-intensity producer of green house gasses. Its carbon intensity did not increase as economic growth accelerated in the last decade. The reasons for this, Damania explained, are that the region produces goods and services with very low amounts of emissions and low consumption of energy.

India, despite being the world's second most populous country and fourth largest economy, its carbon emissions is only one-fifth that of the United States or China. Furthermore, India is also one of the lowest-intensity producers of carbon among other large countries. However, Damania warned that “because poverty is so endemic and widespread, the climate impact on South Asia will be severe even if the region continues to be a low-intensity producer.”

World Bank Responds

Speaking about the Bank’s approach, Damania said the Bank is mainstreaming climate change into many of its operations in South Asia. “For instance, when roads are built, we need to make sure they can cope with the current climate risks and the trashing it may get from flooding and storms now but also into the future. We are also piloting operations that are gearing entirely to climate change, mitigating the risks, and building resilience.”

World Bank Assistance to Bangladesh

November 20, 2007 - The World Bank has offered up to US$250 million in the aftermath of Cyclone Sidr to help millions of Bangladeshis recover and to strengthen the country’s disaster mitigation systems.

Bank assistance could be used to support short-term needs like food imports, the rapid procurement of medical supplies, cash grants to the poorest victims and help to get people back on their feet and recovering their sources of income and livelihood. Bank support could also help Bangladesh manage macroeconomic shocks over this period of challenge.

In the longer term, Bank support would be available for infrastructure rehabilitation, especially damage to embankments and other flood mitigation and shelter infrastructure. Xian Zhu, World Bank Country Director for Bangladesh commended the progress that this disaster-prone country has made in dealing with the short and longer term impact of periodic floods and cyclones.

The Bank’s assistance will also support coastal zone management to help Bangladesh face the challenge of climate change by both mitigating the inevitable impact of future storms and designing the necessary adaptations to protect people and their livestock.

The cyclone support will complement existing commitments from the World Bank in response to massive floods in August and September. The Bank provided US$75 million in quick-disbursing financing as an initial flood response and will support

restoration and rehabilitation through reallocation of existing funds to support reconstruction and improvements in the areas of agriculture, health, communications, water and sanitation. (Read More »)

Climate change impacts and adaptation in Bangladesh:

An agent-based approach

Angus, S.D. 1, Parris, B. 2,3 and Hassani-M., B. 2

1Department of Economics, Monash University, Clayton, Victoria.

2Department of Econometrics & Business Statistics, Monash University, Clayton, Victoria.

3World Vision Australia, Burwood East, Victoria.

Email: Simon.Angus@buseco.monash.edu.au

Abstract: Bangladesh exemplifies the complex challenges facing densely populated coastal regions. The

pressures on the country are immense: around 145 million people live within an area of just 145,000 sq-km at

the confluence of three major river systems: the Ganges, the Brahmaputra and the Meghna. While progress

has been made, poverty remains widespread, with around 39% of children under five malnourished. Most of

its land-mass lies below 10m above sea level with considerable areas at sea level, leading to frequent and

prolonged flooding during the monsoons. Sea level rise is leading to more flooding as storm surges rise off

higher sea levels, pushing further inland. Higher sea levels also result in salt-water intrusion into freshwater

coastal aquifers and estuaries, contaminating drinking water and farmland. Warmer ocean waters are also

expected to lead to an increase in the intensity of tropical storms.

Bangladesh depends on the South Asian summer monsoon for most of its rainfall which is expected to

increase, leading to more flooding. Climate scientists are also concerned about the stability of monsoon and

the potential for it to undergo a nonlinear phase shift to a drier regime. Bangladesh faces an additional

hydrological challenge in that the Ganges and Brahmaputra rivers both rise in the Himalaya-Tibetan Plateau

region, where glaciers are melting rapidly. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)

concluded that rapid melting is expected to increase river flows until around the late-2030s, by which time

the glaciers are expected to have shrunk from their 1995 extent of 500,000 sq-km to an expected 100,000 sq-

km. After the 2030s, river flows could drop dramatically, turning the great glacier-fed rivers of Asia into

seasonal monsoon-fed rivers. The IPCC concluded that as a result, water shortages in Asia could affect more

than a billion people by the 2050s. Over the same period, crop yields are expected to decline by up to 30% in

South Asia due to a combination of drought and crop heat stress. Bangladesh is therefore likely to face

substantial challenges in the coming decades.

In order to adequately understand the complex, dynamic, spatial and nonlinear challenges facing Bangladesh,

an integrated model of the system is required. An agent-based model (ABM) permits the dynamic

interactions of the economic, social, political, geographic, environmental and epidemiological dimensions of

climate change impacts and adaptation policies to be integrated via a modular approach. Integrating these

dimensions, including nonlinear threshold events such as mass migrations, or the outbreak of conflicts or

epidemics, is possible to a far greater degree with an ABM than with most other approaches.

We are developing a prototype ABM, implemented in Netlogo, to examine the dynamic impacts on poverty,

migration, mortality and conflict from climate change in Bangladesh from 2001 to 2100. The model employs

GIS and sub-district level census and economic data and a coarse-graining methodology to allow model

statistics to be generated on a national scale from local dynamic interactions. This approach allows a more

realistic treatment of distributed spatial events and heterogeneity across the country. The aim is not to

generate precise predictions of Bangladesh’s evolution, but to develop a framework that can be used for

integrated scenario exploration. This paper represents an initial report on progress on this project. So far the

prototype model has demonstrated the desirability and feasibility of integrating the different dimensions of

the complex adaptive system and, once completed, is intended to be used as the basis for a more detailed

policy-oriented model.

Angus et al., Climate change impacts and adaptation in Bangladesh

1.

INTRODUCTION

Bangladesh exemplifies the complex challenges facing densely populated coastal regions. The pressures on

the country are immense: around 145 million people live within an area of just 145,000 sq-km at the

confluence of three major river systems: the Ganges, the Brahmaputra and the Meghna. While progress has

been made, poverty remains widespread, with around 39% of children under five malnourished (World Bank,

2008). Most of its land-mass lies below 10m above sea level with considerable areas at sea level, leading to

frequent and prolonged flooding during the monsoons. Sea level rise is leading to more flooding as storm

surges rise off higher sea levels, pushing further inland. Higher sea levels also result in salt-water intrusion

into freshwater coastal aquifers and estuaries, contaminating drinking water and farmland. The impact of

climate change on the frequency of tropical storms is uncertain, but the sea-surface temperature over the

North Indian Ocean has warmed by about 0.6º C since 1960 and warmer ocean waters are expected to lead to

an increase in the intensity of tropical storms (Yu & Wang, 2009; IPCC, 2007a, p. 15).

Bangladesh depends on the South Asian summer monsoon for most of its rainfall. A multi-model study for

South Asia projected “a significant increase in mean monsoon of 8% and a possible extension of the

monsoon period” with an intensification of both extremely heavy and extremely deficient monsoons

(Kripalani et al. 2007). Climate scientists are also concerned about the stability of monsoon and the potential

for it to undergo a nonlinear phase shift to a drier regime (Lenton et al. 2008, p. 1790). A recent fine-scale

study noted the potential for climate change to weaken monsoon overall across the sub-continent, an average

decline in summer rainfall, a delay in the onset of monsoon and more monsoon break periods, but also

potentially increased rainfall in Bangladesh, which would lead to more flooding (Ashfaq et al. 2009).

Bangladesh faces an additional hydrological challenge in that the Ganges and Brahmaputra rivers both rise in

the Himalaya-Tibetan Plateau region, where glaciers are melting rapidly. Glacial meltwater provides as much

as 70% of the summer flow in the Ganges and 50-60% for other major rivers in the region (Barnett et al.

2005, p. 306). But temperatures on the Tibetan Plateau have risen three times faster than the global average

for the last 50 years (Qiu, 2008). The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) concluded that

rapid melting is expected to increase river flows until around the late-2030s, by which time the glaciers are

expected to have shrunk from their 1995 extent of 500,000 sq-km to an expected 100,000 sq-km (Cruz et al.

2007, pp. 493). After the 2030s, river flows could drop dramatically, turning the great glacier-fed rivers of

Asia into seasonal monsoon-fed rivers. The IPCC concluded that as a result, water shortages in Asia could

affect more than a billion people by the 2050s. Over the same period, crop yields are expected to decline by

up to 30% in South Asia due to a combination of drought and crop heat stress (IPCC, 2007b, p. 13).

It seems then that Bangladesh could experience a phase shift in future climatic conditions: An initial period

of more frequent and intense flooding as the Himalayan glaciers melt and monsoon rainfall increases,

followed after the 2030s by a more uncertain period when glacier meltwaters decline dramatically, monsoons

become more uncertain and variable, crop losses increase from heat and drought, and humanitarian and

security concerns start to dominate as the entire region experiences major water and food shortages.

Bangladesh is therefore likely to face substantial challenges in the coming decades. But the country has also

made significant progress on disaster preparedness, helping to reduce mortality from more than 300,000 in

the 1971 cyclone to just over 4,000 in Cyclone Sidr in 2007 (Luetz, 2008, p. 106).

In order to adequately understand the complex, dynamic, spatial and nonlinear challenges facing Bangladesh,

an integrated and appropriately scaled model of the system is required. An agent-based model (ABM)

permits the dynamic interactions of the economic, social, political, geographic, environmental and

epidemiological dimensions of climate change impacts and adaptation policies to be integrated via a modular

approach. Integrating these dimensions, including threshold effects such as mass migrations or the outbreak

of conflict or epidemics, is possible to a far greater degree with an ABM than with most other approaches

(Boulanger & Bréchet, 2005). We are developing a prototype ABM, implemented in Netlogo (Wilensky,

1999), to examine the dynamic impacts on poverty, migration, mortality and conflict from climate change in

Bangladesh from 2001 to 2100. This paper represents an initial report of progress on this project. The model

employs GIS and sub-district level census and economic data and a coarse-graining methodology to allow

model statistics to be generated on a national scale from local dynamic interactions. This approach allows a

more realistic treatment of distributed spatial events and heterogeneity across the country. The aim is not to

generate precise predictions of Bangladesh’s evolution, but to develop a framework that can be developed for

integrated scenario exploration, to help inform future plans similar to the official Bangladesh Climate

Change Strategy and Action Plan 2008 (MoEF, 2008). Our goal is to learn lessons from the development of

this simple prototype model which can be applied to the development of a more sophisticated model, similar

in scope to the EURACE ABM of Europe (Deissenberg et al. 2009), that will be of use to policymakers.

Angus et al., Climate change impacts and adaptation in Bangladesh

2.

MODELLING APPROACH

2.1. Overview

Many of the traditional approaches to the economic modelling of climate change impacts and responses have

been heavily criticized for their reliance on smooth, linear equilibrium approaches which presume perfect

information, perfect competition, complete networks, spatial homogeneity and unique equilibria, among

other things (e.g. by DeCanio, 2003 and Ackerman, 2008). Rather than using a Computable General

Equilibrium (CGE) methodology then, which would provide a mean-field approximation to the phenomena

under investigation, we will allow key non-linear effects to emerge from the interactions of discrete agents.

For instance, threshold effects in external and internal migration, in political stability, and in food and water

supplies are likely to be vital in shaping the more or less resilient development pathways for Bangladesh. To

accommodate such effects, each critical component of the overall economic system is implemented in a

scaled and inter-connected way. Our approach is to build an agent-based, scaled and verifiable model of the

key components of Bangladesh’s economic, social and demographic characteristics, using the results of

climate model of the region as a data input. For simplicity we ignore the possible feedback from

Bangladesh’s development trajectory on the climate, since this is likely to be negligible compared with

global forcing from the rest of the world’s emissions.

The model is agent-based in that interactions take place within a population of discrete heterogeneous agents

which include people, households, districts, the government, the rest of the world and the climate itself. In

this way, through initialisation and then repeated updating of state-variables, the model represents an

adaptable framework to run development response experiments over a long time horizon. We report below

the main features of the approach and the rationale for their adoption.

2.2. Temporal scaling

Our aim is to produce development and climate impact pathways over a 100 year time-horizon. With such a

long time-scale, the choice of model time-resolution is critical since it can have significant cumulative

ramifications. The time-resolution choice is complicated further by the mixture of event time-scales expected

in the model. Major harvests and weather patterns (dry, monsoon) occur approximately every six months,

though not in phase, while crisis events such as epidemics, cyclones or floods can take as little as a few days

to occur (and many months for their full impact to be realised).

A lower bound for the time-resolution is provided by computational considerations. For instance, a time-

resolution of one day would require 36,525 model updates per run. Since we wish to produce statistical

quantities of output data over several IPCC climate scenarios (not to mention further robustness tests over

any free-parameter ranges) a coarser resolution is desirable. On the other hand, the time-scale on which

significant events are expected to occur must provide an upper bound. Since our approach emphasises the

interaction between the economy and the environment, with particular emphasis on extreme weather events

such as cyclones, floods and storm surges, a time resolution of three months would be unlikely to afford the

model sufficient adaptability to respond to significant shifts in either the economic or environment inputs.

Balancing these considerations, we have opted for a time-scale of one week per update, thus reducing the

count of model updates to 5,200 over the 100 year period while ensuring that most significant model events

have at least a few updates in which to take effect.

2.3. Spatial, demographic and other scaling considerations

Given that Bangladesh's population numbers over 145 million, and inhabits 6 Divisions, comprised of 64

zilas (districts) or 493 upazilas (sub-districts), there are several decisions to be made for agent-scaling in the

model. While it may be intuitively appealing to carry out a one Person agent per real person approach, one

must consider the potential interactions that n objects can undergo. Whilst the maximal count of such

interactions scales in polynomial order, even after applying a localisation criterion these interactions would

be overwhelming on the scale of Bangladesh's underlying population, and so we believe the setup demands

many-to-one scaling.

In this domain we have decided on approximately 10,000 Person agents as a somewhat arbitrary upper bound

based on the computational capability of our software and hardware after some experimentation, and the

desire to see what is possible to implement on a standard desktop machine with careful scaling and

aggregation choices. This desire arises from a consideration of the equipment most likely to be available in

developing country settings. In our view, if we can obtain useful results while avoiding the need for

supercomputers or large clusters then so much the better. The architecture is intended to be scalable however,

Angus et al., Climate change impacts and adaptation in Bangladesh

for when high performance facilities are available for more detailed work. This assumption means that each

Person agent represents around 14,500 people in terms of his or her production and consumption, in the

manner of super-individuals described by Schaffer et al. (1995) and Parry and Evans (2008). The Person

agents are grouped together in family groups and households just as individual people would be. While not

perfect, this approach, followed by Parris (2006) for a demographic ABM of Tanzania, strikes a useful

balance between the need to model individuals, so that children’s development, gender effects, illness,

education, births and deaths can all be modelled explicitly, while reducing the computational burden imposed

by the larger-scale production and consumption that would normally undertaken by that number of real

individuals.

This decision to use super-individuals was guided by a parallel decision regarding the spatial resolution of

the model, that is, the number and layout of the DistrictZones. Here, the resolution of available input data,

desired output statistics and computational ability are all relevant. Since there are many data sources that

pertain to Bangladesh’s 64 zilas, they are an obvious first option. Using zilas results in the pleasing property

that each district-zone in the model will be inhabited by over 150 Person agents grouped into approximately

20 Households. These figures provide the desired level of diversity for measures such as population

demographics and economic activity and engagement. The other available computationally feasible

jurisdictions, namely Divisions, would dramatically reduce the diversity of Person agents within a

DistrictZone, which is undesirable.

As integrators of economic activity (both farm and non-farm) and all data pertaining to DistrictZones we also

include 64 static DistrictNodes which are located at the centroids of the 64 zilas. We have adapted GIS data

to locate our DistrictZones and thus DistrictNodes. Both components of the model can be seen in Fig. 1.

As can be seen in the figure, we conceive of the

DistrictNodes as nodes in a district

Figure 1: The resultant combined GIS layer and

DistrictAgents/ModelZone

network

layer

neighbourhood network such that decisions made

at the district level by the DistrictNodes can

representation of the spatial model environment.

operate on information from neighbouring

districts. Similarly, information of a diverse

nature (e.g. political, topographic etc.) can be

incorporated into the DistrictZone layer and so

feed into the DistrictNodes’ methods. While

Figure 1 demonstrates the generation of the

district neighborhood network layer, it is also

possible to generate other network layers such as

an agent transport layer which takes as an input

the time-resolution decision such that a network

of feasible node-to-node journeys are generated

in (say) seven days. All network connections can

of course be weighted by relevant statistics

pertaining to road carrying capacities and/or

inter-district transport options (e.g. road, rail, air,

sea).

2.4. Other agents

A stylised summary of the key agents in the

model to be discussed is presented in the

indicative Unified Modeling Language (UML)

chart seen in Fig. 2 and in the relational diagram

in Fig. 3. In addition to the People and

DistrictNodes, Households (comprised of a

collection of People) facilitate actions and

decisions at the household/family level such as family migration, family planning and family income/budget

setting. The Households also importantly represent food/farm economic activity. Alternatively, urban/non-

farm economic activity is represented by Firms who interact with buyers in the market to generate prices and

transfers of food and non-food products. Next, the climatic influence is represented by the Climate agent

which takes the particular IPCC scenario under investigation as an input and generates river-flow, rainfall,

temperature and importantly extreme weather data for all districts in the model, including river flows

originating outside Bangladesh.

Figure 2: Draft Unified Modeling Language (UML) class diagram for the model, showing key

agents and linkages between agents.

Figure 3: The relationship between People,

Finally, the RestOfTheWorld agent is relatively simple,

Households, Firms, DistrictZones and

but is important to drive export/import and migration in

DistrictNodes in the proposed approach.

the model. This agent must not only represent near-

neighbour effects and actions but also trading-partner

nations. It is possible that this agent will be split along

direct-neighbour, far-neighbour lines in future

implementations of the model. Lastly, the government,

the main implementer of policy, is modelled as a single

Government agent, responsible for taxation, price policies,

import and export policy setting and migration laws. As

with the RestOfTheWorld, the Government will likewise

be a focus of robustness testing since large variation in

government activity is very likely.

2.5. Interactions

While the precise interactions of each agent in the model

are the focus of our current work in this early stage of the

project, an indicative relational diagram of our intentions

is given in Fig. 4 below. The proposed approach takes

seriously the path-dependence of such elements as

agricultural production. In Bangladesh, average monthly rainfall varies between 7 mm and over 480 mm, so

planning decisions by households and subsequent rainfall activity will have major impacts on the viability of

crops. This importance is reflected in the multi-stage crop cycle we propose as shown in the diagram, and the

associated UML methods for households and districts. At this stage, a simple two-good market (food and

non-food) is established between the urban and non-urban sectors of the districts.

3.

DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS

The modelling approach, as described above and presently under development, has the potential to offer

useful insights to the long-run outcomes for Bangladesh's policy options in response to climate change. It

should be stressed that the above approach and associated model represents a pilot, ‘proof-of-concept’ model

leading to a more elaborate design in the future. Nonetheless, the pilot offers sufficient detail and complexity

to test our assumptions concerning key components and the importance of non-linear feedbacks and

threshold events in this modelling domain.

Furthermore, while the model appears to have many free variables, it should be noted that since we are

aiming for a scaled approach, a significant portion of the inputs will appear as constants in the model, derived

from statistical and econometric analysis of the relevant source data. The long-run climate projections will

come from the multi-model Program for Climate Model Diagnosis and Intercomparison (PCMDI) (see:

http:www-pcmdi.llnl.gov/). Bangladesh also maintains an excellent central statistical agency (see:

http://www.bbs.gov.bd/) which provides several key data series and projections at the zila (district) level.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The authors wish to thank the Faculty of Business and Economics at Monash University for the provision of

a Faculty Pilot grant that supported this work.

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