Have coastal embankments reduced flooding in Bangladesh?

From the 1960s, embankments have been constructed in south western coastal region of Bangladesh to provide protection against flooding, but the success of the polder programme is disputed. We present analysis of floods during the years 1988-2012, diagnosing whether the floods were attributable to monsoonal precipitation (pluvial flooding), high upstream river discharge into the tidal delta (fluvio-tidal flooding), or cyclone-induced storm surges. We find that pluvial flooding was the most frequent, but typically resulted in less flooded area (11.44% of the region on average) compared with the other forms of flooding. The greatest area of inundation (48% of total area) occurring in 2001 as a consequence of fluvio-tidal and surge flooding, whilst cyclone Sidr in 2007 flooded 35% of the…