Mahmuda Mutahara

Hi,

Mahmuda is here. I am from Bangladesh and I would like to introduce myself as an natural science researcher who always wants to work for the well-being of  vulnerable people of the coastal area of Bangladesh delta.

From March 2012, I have started my PhD with Irrigation and Water Engineering Group in Wageningen University, Netherlands. It is a great opportunity for me to work in "Communities and institutions for flood resilience: enhancing knowledge and capacity to manage flood risk in the Bangladeshi and Dutch Deltas" project with WUR group and Institute of Water and Flood Management (IWFM), Bangladesh. Under this project my PhD will be conducted on Rural Flood Management and Resilience Enhancement.

I was born at a small village in the South-West coastal district named Satkhira which is one of the disaster hit part of Bangladesh. The hurting memories of destruction of the cyclone Aila in 2009 (25 May) has not been faded yet among the coastal people. Fortunately, or unfortunately, I had to have a good look at the flooded peoples’ endless sufferings at that time because I was working in the affected area for my research of M. Sc Thesis under IWFM, BUET. And I have decided to work in the field of Water Resources as well as Environmental Management of the coastal area of Bangladesh. 

Before join the Wageningen PhD, I was working with “Centre for Environmental and Geographic Information Services (CEGIS) (A Public Trust under the Ministry of Water Resources, Bangladesh)”, a leading research organization and Center of excellence in integrated natural resources management studies in Bangladesh for last two years as a research professional in Water Resources and Environmental Studies. Being worked closely with various water resources management project of Bangladesh Water Development Board and the Government’s Water Resources Ministry in coastal area specially south-west area of Bangladesh I have practical experiences on risk of water born natural hazards and its effect on living and livelihood of coastal people in Bangladesh. My experience being on field for previous and current years has drawn my attention more towards the development of coastal livelihood system, climate change adaptation and environmental management for their better living. Therefore I would like to gain a deeper theoretical knowledge in Vulnerability and Risk Assessment, Adaptation and Mitigation Approaches and Resilience studies as a multidisciplinary and integrated context for the field of water management research. I am lucky to keep the opportunity to work with a lot of expert scientists of  Dutch universities with a high reputation like Wageningen University (WU)  and UNESCO-IHE.

As a part of WOTRO-IP Delta Lesson (Netherlands and Bangladesh) Programme, my study is designed on Bangladesh cases where discussion going on complex coastal disaster and socio-ecological issues as flooding, tidal river management, community and water management involving climate change vulnerability in the south-west area of Bangladesh delta. Bangladesh is always an ever dynamic Delta. People of this delta are straggling from long run and in future it could be more for them due to climate changes. This is the high time to awake up and walk to face the threat in tidal area of BD. Dutch Delta is also a flood plain delta, but the cases are different. In my PhD, I will try to focus on flood management approach, its technical prospects, community response and learning to resilience in Bangladesh and part of Dutch delta.