Crossing the Bay of Bengal
Crossing the Bay of Bengal

Author: Sunil S. Amrith

Publisher: Harvard University Press

Published: 2013-10-07

Total Pages: 324

ISBN-13: 0674728475

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The Indian Ocean was global long before the Atlantic, and today the countries bordering the Bay of Bengal—India, Bangladesh, Burma, Sri Lanka, Thailand, and Malaysia—are home to one in four people on Earth. Crossing the Bay of Bengal places this region at the heart of world history for the first time. Integrating human and environmental history, and mining a wealth of sources, Sunil Amrith gives a revelatory and stirring new account of the Bay and those who have inhabited it. For centuries the Bay of Bengal served as a maritime highway between India and China, and then as a battleground for European empires, all while being shaped by the monsoons and by human migration. Imperial powers in the nineteenth century, abetted by the force of capital and the power of steam, reconfigured the Bay in their quest for coffee, rice, and rubber. Millions of Indian migrants crossed the sea, bound by debt or spurred by drought, and filled with ambition. Booming port cities like Singapore and Penang became the most culturally diverse societies of their time. By the 1930s, however, economic, political, and environmental pressures began to erode the Bay’s centuries-old patterns of interconnection. Today, rising waters leave the Bay of Bengal’s shores especially vulnerable to climate change, at the same time that its location makes it central to struggles over Asia’s future. Amrith’s evocative and compelling narrative of the region’s pasts offers insights critical to understanding and confronting the many challenges facing Asia in the decades ahead.

Climate Change and the Bay of Bengal
Climate Change and the Bay of Bengal

Author: Sanjay Chaturvedi

Publisher: ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute

Published: 2015-10-16

Total Pages: 251

ISBN-13: 9814459585

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Climate Change and the Bay of Bengal argues that in the era of climate change radically different understandings of security and sovereignty are at work. It questions the geopolitics of fear and the manner in which metanarratives of climate change tend to privilege the “global” and “national” scales over other scales, especially the regional and the local. The authors argue in favour of a new imagination of the Bay of Bengal space as a semi-enclosed sea, embedded in a large marine ecosystem, under the relevant provisions of the UNCLOS that impose various obligations upon its signatories to cooperate at a regional level. Such an imagination, anchored in geographies of hope, should not remain confined to official domains and discourses but become a part of popular socio-spatial consciousness through a regional public diplomacy reaching out to the grassroots level. A Bay of Bengal regional seas programme, under the auspices of UNEP, should be conceptualized and operationalized in a manner that explicitly factors in climate change consequences into the existing understandings and approaches to environmental-human security in the region.

Pelagic Passageways
Pelagic Passageways

Author: Rila Mukherjee

Publisher: Primus Books

Published: 2011

Total Pages: 518

ISBN-13: 9380607202

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Due to the frontierization of nation-states, maritime historians have tended to ignore the northern Bay of Bengal. Yet, this marginal region, now dispersed over the four nation-states of India, China, Myanmar and Bangladesh, was not marginal in the past. Until recently, however, historians have concentrated largely on the 'big four': the Gujarat, Malabar, Coromandel and western Bengal coasts. Extreme eastern South Asia -- Bengal and the lands to its north-east fanning into Burma and China, or modern India's north-east and beyond -- is the focus of Pelagic Passageways. This regional unit, including diverse topographic features: plains, forests, estuaries, deltas, rivers, mountains, lakes, plateaus and remote passes, oscillates between unity and fragmentation, between centrality and marginality in the larger space of the Bay of Bengal. To attempt a history of this space is indeed challenging. There is not one, but two deltas here: the western delta, corresponding to present West Bengal in India and centred now on Kolkata, and the south-eastern delta, in present Bangladesh, centred on Dhaka, and running into Arakan. Not merely in terms of location, but on a historical axis too, the two deltas are vastly different as they have followed disparate trajectories, dictated in part by their geographies. Pelagic Passageways, therefore, questions the conventional fault line, located on the south-eastern Bengal delta, between the historiography of South and South-East Asia. Concentrating on commodity and currency flows, travel, trade, routes and interactive networks Pelagic Passageways visualizes the cultural space of the northern Bay of Bengal as embracing upland landlocked areas -- Ava, Yunnan, the Tripuri, Dimasa and Ahom states -- not usually seen as part of maritime history. This collection of essays suggests that they too were a part of the social and commercial networks of the Indian Ocean. While these countries literally fell off the map, this volume proposes that we see these areas instead as crossroads, mediating flows between the land-dwelling and aquatic worlds.

Techniques for Disaster Risk Management and Mitigation
Techniques for Disaster Risk Management and Mitigation

Author: Prashant K. Srivastava

Publisher: John Wiley & Sons

Published: 2020-05-27

Total Pages: 372

ISBN-13: 111935918X

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A comprehensive guide to managing and mitigating natural disasters Recent years have seen a surge in the number, frequency, and severity of natural disasters, with further increases expected as the climate continues to change. However, advanced computational and geospatial technologies have enabled the development of sophisticated early warning systems and techniques to predict, manage, and mitigate disasters.Techniques for Disaster Risk Management and Mitigation explores different approaches to forecasting disasters and provides guidance on mitigation and adaptation strategies. Volume highlights include: Review of current and emerging technologies for disaster prediction Different approaches to risk management and mitigation Strategies for implementing disaster plans and infrastructure improvements Guidance on integrating artificial intelligence with GIS and earth observation data Examination of the regional and global impacts of disasters under climate variability

Ecosystem Services for Well-Being in Deltas
Ecosystem Services for Well-Being in Deltas

Author: Robert J. Nicholls

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2018-05-29

Total Pages: 615

ISBN-13: 3319710931

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This book answers key questions about environment, people and their shared future in deltas. It develops a systematic and holistic approach for policy-orientated analysis for the future of these regions. It does so by focusing on ecosystem services in the world’s largest, most populous and most iconic delta region, that of the Ganges-Brahmaputra delta in Bangladesh. The book covers the conceptual basis, research approaches and challenges, while also providing a methodology for integration across multiple disciplines, offering a potential prototype for assessments of deltas worldwide. Ecosystem Services for Well-Being in Deltas analyses changing ecosystem services in deltas; the health and well-being of people reliant on them; the continued central role of agriculture and fishing; and the implications of aquaculture in such environments.The analysis is brought together in an integrated and accessible way to examine the future of the Ganges Brahmaputra delta based on a near decade of research by a team of the world’s leading scientists on deltas and their human and environmental dimensions. This book is essential reading for students and academics within the fields of Environmental Geography, Sustainable Development and Environmental Policy focused on solving the world’s most critical challenges of balancing humans with their environments. This book is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

International Marine Economy
International Marine Economy

Author: Myron H. Nordquist

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2017-04-11

Total Pages: 457

ISBN-13: 9004323449

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International Marine Economy offers contributions from marine experts around the globe on the economic impacts of recent developments in international waters. From the South China Arbitration Award to the Bay of Bengal Case, this text includes important writings on Artic Shipping and Fisheries, the deep seabed, resources and maritime boundary regimes and studies the possibility of a new international agreement regulating the conservation of biological diversity in areas beyond national jurisdiction. Finally, it concludes by considering the challenges and opportunities of whaling in the Antarctic Case, ocean governance issues in Southeast Asia, and the exercise of control over foreign merchant vessels and state liability for wrong assessments. This volume offers much needed contemporary commentary from renowned scholars on rapidly evolving maritime topics.

Between the Bay of Bengal and the Java Sea
Between the Bay of Bengal and the Java Sea

Author: Mariana Isa

Publisher: Marshall Cavendish International Asia Pte Ltd

Published: 2020-02-15

Total Pages: 259

ISBN-13: 9814893005

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The peoples of Southeast Asia have a long history of cultural commonalities. From Sumatra to Vietnam, the inhabitants built wooden houses on poles whether they lived in flooded coastal plains or in the highlands. Their diet consisted mainly of rice and fish. They believed in common folk deities such as the rice-spirit. They chewed betel and engaged in pastimes such as cockfighting and sepak takraw. How did such features come to spread across an area of 4.5 million square kilometres? Southeast Asia – for all its diversity of ethnicity, language, religion – can best be understood as a region that has been knit together by a network of trade routes over land and sea. This revelatory new book traces the diffusion of cultures across Southeast Asia from the last few centuries BCE, by looking at trade goods such as Indian beads, Vietnamese Dongson drums, Chinese ceramics, and spices from the Indonesian archipelago. The authors take us through a host of ancient port cities, such as Srivijaya, whose fortunes were intimately tied to these trade routes, pointing out striking similarities in architecture, writing systems, and everyday customs. Richly illustrated with maps, drawings and full-colour photographs, Between the Bay of Bengal and the Java Sea is an illuminating slice of history that reveals in beautiful detail the longstanding mercantile links and cultural kinship among the disparate peoples of Southeast Asia.

Legal Regime of Marine Environment in the Bay of Bengal
Legal Regime of Marine Environment in the Bay of Bengal

Author: M. Habibur Rahman

Publisher: Atlantic Publishers & Dist

Published: 2007

Total Pages: 420

ISBN-13: 9788126907595

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There Is A Growing Concern About The Change In Composition Of The Atmosphere, Depletion Of The Ozone Shield, Pollution Of Marines And Rapid Population Growth Leading To Alarming Imbalance Between Population And Resources. Concerted Efforts Are Being Made Across The World To Curb The Environmental Degradation. The Un Conference On The Human Environment Held In Stockholm In 1972 Marked The Beginning Of The Development Of International Environmental Law By Soft Law Mechanism. With The Un Convention On The Law Of The Sea, 1982, The State Parties Have Been Made Obligatory To Protect The Marine Environment, Including All The Resources Therein.The Present Book Is A Treatise On The Legal Regime Of The Marine Environment In The Bay Of Bengal. It Provides A Comprehensive Description And Assessment Of The Legal Regime Governing This Particular Maritime Area. It Focuses On Its Protection, Preservation And Development. It Deals With Fisheries As Well As The Protection Of The Environment Against Pollution And The Discharge Of Waste From Land.Beginning With The Study Of Fisheries Management In The Bay Of Bengal, The Book Includes In Its Study The Major Agreements And Protocols, International Documents On Marine Environment, Seabed Mining And Its Consequences, Settlement Of Environmental Disputes, And The Present-Day Socio-Economic Condition In The Bay Of Bengal Region. The Book Also Provides A Bibliography To Enable The Readers To Pursue Their Study Further. The Index That Completes The Book Would Prove A Useful Study-Aid To All Readers. Since The Study Is Embedded In The Global Perspective Of The Protection Of The Marine Environment, It Shall Be Of Significant Use To All Those In Coastal And Naval Services, Government Executives, Planners And Policy Makers Concerned With The Protection Of The Marine Environment. For The Scholars And Teachers Of International Law, It Is An Ideal Reference Book.

Empire and Ecology in the Bengal Delta
Empire and Ecology in the Bengal Delta

Author: Debjani Bhattacharyya

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2018-05-24

Total Pages: 485

ISBN-13: 1108681727

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What happens when a distant colonial power tries to tame an unfamiliar terrain in the world's largest tidal delta? This history of dramatic ecological changes in the Bengal Delta from 1760 to 1920 involves land, water and humans, tracing the stories and struggles that link them together. Pushing beyond narratives of environmental decline, Bhattacharyya argues that 'property-thinking', a governing tool critical in making land and water discrete categories of bureaucratic and legal management, was at the heart of colonial urbanization and the technologies behind the draining of Calcutta. The story of ecological change is narrated alongside emergent practices of land speculation and transformation in colonial law. Bhattacharyya demonstrates how this history continues to shape our built environments with devastating consequences, as shown in the Bay of Bengal's receding coastline.