Prof. Abdul Jabbar Khan presenting his lecture
A portion of the participants of the roundtable meeting chaired by VC, BUET
A portion of the participants of the roundtable meeting chaired by VC, BUET
Roundtable Meeting on
Raincut Erosion Control in Chittagong Hilly Areas
Date: August 28, 2008
Bangladesh Network Office for Urban Safety (BNUS) organized a lecture on Raincut Erosion Control in Chittagong Hilly Areas on August 28, 2008, at ITN Conference Room of the Civil Engineering Building (3rd Floor), Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET), Dhaka.
The program was chaired by the honorable Vice Chancellor of BUET, Prof Dr. M. M. Shafiullah and moderated by Prof. Dr. Mehedi Ahmed Ansary, Dept. of Civil Engineering. Prof. Abdul Jabbar Khan from the Dept. of Civil Engineering, BUET delivered a lecture on the application of Geojute – a special type of woven type open mesh jute geotextiles, for protection against raincut erosion of hilly areas. On his lecture, he pointed out that the recent occurrences of raincut erosion in Chittagong hilly areas have added a challenge to the engineering know-how, administrative decisiveness and mass awareness.
Landslides have become a common phenomenon in greater Chittagong and the adjacent rolling areas including the Chittagong Hill Tracts in recent years. Hill levelling in the Chittagong region continues unabated despite frequent mudslides during the monsoon. A total of 11 persons were killed and more than 30 were injured in a landslide in Motijhorna area at Lalkhan Bazar in the port city of Chittagong on August 18. Heavy downpour caused the landslide. A total of 128 persons were killed in a massive landslide in Chittagong City on June 11, 2007.
Raincut erosions occur mainly due to man-made denudation and cutting of the hills. If vegetations (grass and plants) with deep roots can be grown on these stripped hill surfaces, the problem would be either totally eliminated or at least significantly reduced. Geojute is produced in abundance in the local jute mills of Bangladesh and every year more than twelve million square meter is exported in foreign countries. Prof. Abdul Jabbar Khan presented a couple of recent projects implemented by 16 Engineering Construction Battalion (ECB) at Rangamati area using geojute for raincut erosion control under his guidance. He showed that these two project areas protected by geojute have performed surprisingly satisfactorily against the recent high intensity rainfalls of the similar magnitude that caused erosion at Motijhorna of Chittagong.
After the presentation a roundtable meeting was held where twenty six responsible personnel from Education Engineering Department (EED), Geological Survey of Bangladesh (GSB), Fire Service and Civil Defense, Institute of Water Modeling (IWM), CEGIS, PWD, RAJUK, SPARRSO, ECB, BUET participated the meeting. They appreciated the efforts and initiatives taken for examining the applicability of geojute and suggested that apart from exerting the administrative decisions and generating mass awareness, technical solutions comprised of geojute and vegetations should be implemented simultaneously.
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Prof. Abdul Jabbar Khan presenting his lecture |
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A portion of the participants of the roundtable meeting chaired by VC, BUET |
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A portion of the participants of the roundtable meeting chaired by VC, BUET |