Bayes Ahmed

University College London | UCL · Institute for Risk and Disaster Reduction

Purpose “No climate change, no climate refugees”. On the basis of this theme, this paper aims to propose a method for undertaking the responsibility for climate refugees literally uprooted by liable climate polluting countries. It also considers the historical past, culture, geopolitics, imposed wars, economic oppression and fragile governance to...

Landslides are a common hazard in the Chittagong Hill Districts (CHD) of Bangladesh. The communities that live on dangerous hill slopes in CHD repeatedly experience landslide hazards during the monsoon season, with casualties, economic losses and property damage. Although landslides are hazard events triggered by a variety of environmental phenomen...

This article has developed and implemented a method for incorporating and combining quantitative and qualitative data in measuring community vulnerability to environmental hazards. To illustrate the method in practice, a case study of landslides in Chittagong City Corporation (CCC), Bangladesh, is used. Quantitative information from household-level...

Bangladesh is highly disaster-prone, with drought being a major hazard which significantly impacts water, food, health, livelihoods, and migration. In seeking to reduce drought vulnerabilities and impacts while improving responses, existing literature pays limited attention to community-level views and actions. This paper aims to contribute to fill...

Since August 2017, more than 744,400 stateless Rohingya refugees – an ethnic Muslim minority group from the Rakhine State – have entered Bangladesh to escape serious crimes against humanity conducted by the Myanmar Army. Extensive level of deforestation and hill cutting activities took place in Cox’s Bazar District (CBD) in Bangladesh to accommodat...

Resettlement to a third country offers a durable solution for refugees who cannot integrate into their asylum or transit countries. While most studies focus on the experiences of refugees after their arrival in resettlement countries or on the political aspects of resettlement, fewer studies explore refugees’ perspectives prior to resettlement. Thi...

The Kutupalong-Balukhali expansion Rohingya camp provides shelter to nearly one million refugees in a landslide-prone area. The Rohingyas seeking refuge in the camps deal with annual landslide events. This study looks into the existing risk perception of landslides in this shelter-seeking refugee community. Using a structured questionnaire, we cond...

Landslides pose a serious risk to life and property in the mountainous regions around the globe. Understanding the interplay of landslide conditioning and triggering factors is essential for lessening the impacts caused by the hazard. Cox's Bazar — a coastal mountainous district in Bangladesh is recurrently affected by rainfall-triggered landslides...

Rainfall-induced landslides seriously threaten hilly environments, leading local authorities to implement various mitigation measures to decrease disaster risk. However, there is a significant gap in the current literature regarding evaluating their effectiveness and the associated community risk perception. To address this gap, we used an interdis...

Millions of people are being forced to migrate involuntarily due to extreme weather events and anthropogenic climate change each year. Climate-induced human migration is now contemplated as a colossal humanitarian challenge. Climate migration is an emerging issue that has long been neglected for political reasons. Most recent works in this field ar...

The influx of nearly a million refugees from Myanmar's Rakhine state to Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh, in August 2017 put significant pressure on the regional landscape leading to land degradation due to biomass removal to provide shelter and fuel energy and posed critical challenges for both host and displaced population. This article emphasizes geospat...

Landslide disasters in Bangladesh’s Chittagong hill districts (CHD) put lives, livelihood, and the ecosystem at risk. Therefore, understanding the causes of landslide events in CHD is crucial to preparing and implementing disaster risk reduction (DRR) strategies. The causes of landslides are generally seen through the lenses of physical science. Ho...

We addressed the research question, how does the host community perceive the effects of Rohingya influx to Bangladesh, from their perspectives using a questionnaire survey, key informant interviews, and focus group discussions. Bangladesh sheltered over a million Rohingyas, fleeing genocide and serious crimes against humanity, on humanitarian groun...

Health care delivery in refugee camps is challenging; the setting of a refugee camp is a unique context that presents barriers and one of the main problems is the fragmentation and difficulty in communication and information sharing among HCWs deployed in a camp, especially in contexts where communication networks are not always available and acces...

We have proposed a novel method for assessing landslide risk by applying cutting-edge geospatial technologies and combining hazard, exposure, and vulnerability components. The Kutupalong Rohingya Camp (KRC) in Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh, was taken as a case study area. The district was hosting over one million Rohingya refugees from Myanmar, fleeing g...

Each year, natural hazards such as earthquakes, tsunamis, cyclones, flooding, landslides, wildfires, avalanches, volcanic eruption, extreme temperatures, storm surges, and drought result in widespread loss to life, livelihood, and critical infrastructure globally. With the unprecedented growth of the human population, large-scale development activi...

This article critically investigates a catastrophic rainfall-induced landslide event that occurred on 27 July 2021 in the Kutupalong Rohingya Camp (KRC) in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh, from geological and geomorphological perspectives. Large-scale anthropogenic interventions mainly caused the disastrous landslide event in the KRC in addition to intense...

Rohingyas are the most persecuted minority in the world. They have been facing systematic discrimination and serious human rights violations since the 1970s when they stopped being recognized as citizens by the Burmese government. Acts committed against this predominantly Muslim minority in the Rakhine State can be classified as ethnic cleansing wi...

The cartoon booklet (in Bengali) was produced targeting primary school children to raise awareness of landslide disasters among vulnerable communities residing in the hilly regions of Bangladesh.

The Forcibly Displaced Myanmar Nationals (FDMN), historically known as ‘Rohingya’ who fled the 2017 ethnic atrocities and genocide in the Northern Rakhine State of Myanmar, took shelter in Cox’s Bazar District of Bangladesh. The camp network, known as Kutupalong Rohingya Camp (KRC), is situated in the tectonically active tertiary hilly terrain. The...

Landslides have emerged as recurring natural hazards in the hilly districts of Bangladesh. Chittagong, the port city of Bangladesh, has been on the record for devastating landslide events causing the loss of lives and properties. This study aims to investigate the socio-economic aspects, risk perception, and coping mechanisms to landslide disasters...

Introduction Cyclone Amphan swept into Bangladesh’s southwestern coast at the end of May 2020, wreaking havoc on food security and economic stability, as well as possibly worsening mental health. We studied the prevalence of post-cyclone stressors in adults following the cyclone and its association with symptoms of psychological distress. Methods...

Globally, disasters from natural and anthropogenic hazards or humanitarian crises can reverse development gains and weaken resilience. In recent years, some countries have made significant progress towards building resilience to disaster risks, including those driven by the climate crisis. Bangladesh is a leading example as it is well-known as one...

This chapter described the Rohingya refugees’ criteria for their sustainable repatriation in Myanmar based on primary field-level research. It examined the linkages between the criteria and their experience of violence in the Rakhine State in Myanmar. It also critically evaluated the feasibility of meeting the demands of the Rohingyas for successfu...

Label noise is a commonly encountered problem in learning building extraction tasks; its presence can reduce performance and increase learning complexity. This is especially true for cases where high resolution aerial drone imagery is used, as the labels may not perfectly correspond/align with the actual objects in the imagery. In general machine l...

Disaster risk perception and risk appraisal are essential in formulating an appropriate disaster risk reduction policy. This study examines the actual vs perceived drought risks by constructing risk indices at the household and expert levels using survey data from the lower Teesta River Basin in northern Bangladesh. The survey data were collected f...

Predicting the occurrence and spatial patterns of rainfall induced flash floods is still a challenge. Instant genesis and typically smaller areal coverage of the flash floods are the major impediments to their forecasting. Analysis of the morphometric parameters provides useful insight on hydrological response of the drainage basins to high intensi...

This thought piece was presented virtually at the “2020 Global Shifts Colloquium: Seeking Refuge in the Climate Emergency“ organised by the Perry World House at the University of Pennsylvania, USA on 14 September 2020. Original link: https://global.upenn.edu/perryworldhouse/2020-global-shifts-colloquium-report-and-thought-pieces

Communities living in the Chittagong Hill Districts (CHD) of Bangladesh recurrently observe landslide disasters during the monsoon season (June–September). CHD is primarily dominated by three distinct groups of hill communities, namely, urbanised hill (Bengali), indigenous tribal and stateless Rohingya refugees. Landslide vulnerability amongst them...

Coastal Bangladesh is one of the hotspots of tropical cyclone’s landfall in South Asia. A spatial vulnerability assessment is required to formulate disaster risk reduction strategies. This study develops a comprehensive tropical cyclone vulnerability mapping approach by applying Fuzzy Analytical Hierarchy Process (FAHP) and geospatial techniques an...

Landslides are a common natural hazard that causes casualties and unprecedented economic losses every year, especially in vulnerable developing countries. Considering the high cost of in-situ monitoring equipment and the sparse coverage of monitoring points, the Sentinel-1 images and Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar (InSAR) technique were u...

Agriculture is one of the fundamental economic activities in most countries; however, this sector suffers from various natural hazards including flood and drought. The determination of drought-prone areas is essential to select drought-tolerant crops in climate sensitive vulnerable areas. This study aims to enhance the detection of agricultural are...

Despite yielding considerable degrees of accuracy in landslide predictions, the outcomes of different landslide susceptibility models are prone to spatial disagreement; and therefore, uncertainties. Uncertainties in the results of various landslide susceptibility models create challenges in selecting the most suitable method to manage this complex...

Bangladesh is currently hosting more than one million stateless Rohingya refugees, who fled from the Rakhine State to avoid serious crimes against humanity persecuted by the Myanmar Army. The newly arrived Rohingyas were accommodated in overcrowded refugee camps in Cox's Bazar District (CBD). The camps are highly vulnerable to landslides, tropical...

The monitoring and prediction of the landslide groundwater level is a crucial part of landslide early warning systems. In this study, Tangjiao landslide in the Three Gorges Reservoir area (TGRA) in China was taken as a case study. Three groundwater level monitoring sensors were installed in different locations of the landslide. The monitoring data...

Bangladesh has a long history of devastating tropical cyclones. In view of the effects of the storms on the country, risk assessment is essential for devising the mitigation strategies at various levels. By way of bringing the conceptual structure of general risk model in practice, this work aims to examine the spatial patterns of cyclone risk in t...

This article aims to understand local views and understandings of livelihood impacts of flash floods, and how to tackle the challenges. The work is completed through case studies of two villages in Cox's Bazar District in southeast Bangladesh, Manirjhil and Chotojamchori. Based in theoretical understandings from disaster research of how underlying...

The Rohingya crisis defies easy summary. Terms such as ethnic cleansing, genocide, abuse of human rights, have all been applied to what is undoubtedly a major humanitarian crisis of our times. Understanding and responding to the plight of hundreds of thousands of Rohingyas requires a multi-disciplinary approach, with the need for engagement from a...

Given the recent (August 2017) Rohingya exodus to Bangladesh, this research aims to study the overall implications of this exodus for regional stability, security and peace. In so doing, this research intends to understand causes and drivers of identity-based politics associated to Rohingya population in Myanmar. This study also wants to understand...

This paper presents the observations during the UK Earthquake Engineering Field Investigation Team (EEFIT)'s post-earthquake reconnaissance missions to the September 20, 2009 Padang (Mw 7.6), March 11, 2011 Tohoku (Mw 9.0) and April 16, 2016 Muisne (Mw 7.8) earthquakes. The performance of buildings and geotechnical structures within the affected re...

This study aims to understand community risk perception to environmental hazards in a border conflict zone context in high-mountain areas. Participatory rural appraisal (PRA) tools were applied by the social science team. The results were validated with a hazard map prepared by a separate team comprised of geologists. Turtuk, the northernmost villa...

This article aims to develop a Web-GIS based landslide early warning system (EWS) for the Chittagong Metropolitan Area (CMA), Bangladesh, where, in recent years, rainfall-induced landslides have caused great losses of lives and property. A method for combining static landslide susceptibility maps and rainfall thresholds is proposed by introducing a...

With one billion people on the move or having moved in 2018, migration is a global reality, which has also become a political lightning rod. Although estimates indicate that the majority of global migration occurs within low-income and middle-income countries (LMICs), the most prominent dialogue focuses almost exclusively on migration from LMICs to...

On 16 April 2016 an Mw7.8 earthquake with an epicentre 29km south-southeast of Muisne in the northern Ecuadorian province of Manabí caused an estimated 668 fatalities, 6,300 severe injuries and widespread damage. The coastal towns – particularly Pedernales, Canoa, Bahía de Caráquez, Manta, and Portoviejo, all centres of tourism and major hubs of ac...

Globally, a number of catastrophic hydrometeorological hazards occurred in 2017 among which the monsoon floods in South Asia was particularly disastrous, killing nearly 1200 people in India, Nepal and Bangladesh. The wetland region (Haor) of northeastern (NE) Bangladesh was severely affected by flash floods early in 2017, affecting nearly 1 million...

Landslide displacement prediction is an essential component for developing landslide early warning systems. In the Three Gorges Reservoir area (TGRA), landslides experience step-like deformations (i.e., periods of stability interrupted by abrupt accelerations) generally from April to September due to the influence of precipitation and reservoir sch...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to connect the theoretical idea of warning systems as social processes with empirical data of people’s perceptions of and actions for warning for cyclones in Bangladesh. Design/methodology/approach A case study approach is used in two villages of Khulna district in southwest Bangladesh: Kalabogi and Kamarkhola....

Landslide displacement prediction is considered as an essential component for developing early warning systems. The modelling of conventional forecast methods requires enormous monitoring data that limit its application. To conduct accurate displacement prediction with limited data, a novel method is proposed and applied by integrating three comput...

The landslide disasters in Chittagong City Corporation (CCC) reflect a complex blending of community vulnerability and institutional weaknesses. This is why it is important to analyse the community’s vulnerability to depict the holistic scenario of landslide disasters. This article applies participatory methods in assessing community vulnerability...

The Rohingya people are the world's largest stateless population. Violence towards the Rohingya in Myanmar from late August, 2017, caused the mass displacement of 655 000 people from Rakhine State of Myanmar to the southeastern hilly region of Bangladesh, resulting in what UNOCHA describes as the “fastest growing refugee crisis in the world”. The m...

This paper demonstrates traffic accident situation in Dhaka Metropolitan Area, Bangladesh, covering 2716 accidents from 2007-2011. Hotspot and Inverse Distance Weighted methods helped to identify the most vulnerable accident locations. Global Moran’s I was applied to understand the spatial autocorrelation of the accident distribution pattern. Netwo...

North West Bangladesh is a harsh climatic and is experiencing drought conditions. This situation is only partly related to climate and environment but is also due to human made decision making. This study of two communities shows how they have adapted over time and made significant development advances (food security and child mortality) but with i...

Landslide is a common natural hazard and responsible for extensive damage and losses in mountainous areas. In this study, Longju in the Three Gorges Reservoir area in China was taken as a case study for landslide susceptibility assessment in order to develop effective risk prevention and mitigation strategies. To begin, 202 landslides were identifi...