Bangladesh Environment - 2024

Environment - current issues

many people are landless and forced to live on and cultivate flood-prone land; waterborne diseases prevalent in surface water; water pollution, especially of fishing areas, results from the use of commercial pesticides; ground water contaminated by naturally occurring arsenic; intermittent water shortages because of falling water tables in the northern and central parts of the country; soil degradation and erosion; deforestation; destruction of wetlands; severe overpopulation with noise pollution

Environment - international agreements

party to: Biodiversity, Climate Change, Climate Change-Kyoto Protocol, Climate Change-Paris Agreement, Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban, Desertification, Endangered Species, Environmental Modification, Hazardous Wastes, Law of the Sea, Nuclear Test Ban, Ozone Layer Protection, Ship Pollution, Wetlands

signed, but not ratified: none of the selected agreements

Climate

tropical; mild winter (October to March); hot, humid summer (March to June); humid, warm rainy monsoon (June to October)

Land use

agricultural land: 70.1% (2018 est.)

arable land: 59% (2018 est.)

permanent crops: 6.5% (2018 est.)

permanent pasture: 4.6% (2018 est.)

forest: 11.1% (2018 est.)

other: 18.8% (2018 est.)

Urbanization

urban population: 40.5% of total population (2023)

rate of urbanization: 2.88% annual rate of change (2020-25 est.)

Food insecurity

severe localized food insecurity:due to economic constraints and high prices of important food items -  food insecurity is expected to remain fragile, given persisting economic constraints; domestic prices of wheat flour and palm oil, important food items, were at high levels in January 2023; the result of elevated international prices of energy, fuel and food, having been transmitted to the domestic markets (2023)

Revenue from forest resources

0.08% of GDP (2018 est.)

Revenue from coal

0.02% of GDP (2018 est.)

Air pollutants

particulate matter emissions: 45.99 micrograms per cubic meter (2019 est.)

carbon dioxide emissions: 84.25 megatons (2016 est.)

methane emissions: 59.3 megatons (2020 est.)

Waste and recycling

municipal solid waste generated annually: 14,778,497 tons (2012 est.)

Major rivers (by length in km)

Brahmaputra river mouth (shared with China [s] and India) - 3,969 km; Ganges river mouth (shared with India [s]) - 2,704 km
note – [s] after country name indicates river source; [m] after country name indicates river mouth

Major watersheds (area sq km)

Indian Ocean drainage: Brahmaputra (651,335 sq km), Ganges (1,016,124 sq km)

Major aquifers

Indus-Ganges-Brahmaputra Basin

Total water withdrawal

municipal: 3.6 billion cubic meters (2020 est.)

industrial: 770 million cubic meters (2020 est.)

agricultural: 31.5 billion cubic meters (2020 est.)

Total renewable water resources

1.23 trillion cubic meters (2020 est.)