Maritime Education and Sustainable Development: Prospects of Bangladesh
The traditional landscape of Bangladesh and recent maritime boundary delimitation with its neighboring countries (India and Myanmar) have opened a new horizon of potentials for its sustainable economic growth. But it demands diverse professional people in the maritime sector. Specialized maritime education and training (MET) is needed to avail the skilled human resources for this sector. Bangladesh has a range of institutes which include a specialized university, academies, technical institutes and an autonomous research center etc. They offer a range of MET courses and degrees. This paper provides a broad overview of MET opportunities in Bangladesh, and career and other economic prospects of professionals in the maritime sector and its impact on sustainable development of the country. Required data and information has been collected from several databases like ResearchGate, Google Scholar, ScienceDirect, ERIC, journals, newspapers and relevant organizations websites to delineate the overview fostering Bangladeshi perspectives. The paper bears significant implications for the policy makers, teacher, trainers, and other stakeholders involved in the Bangladeshi maritime sector.
Read moreAn Overview Of The Dockyard Industry In Bangladesh: A Review Study
Dockyards can be classified as one of the firstlings, most important and, extremely competitive markets in Bangladesh as well as in the world. The Dockyard industry plays a crucial role in supporting the military, stimulate shipping and industrial development, give rise to employment nationally and, provide support for overseas currency inflow; etc. This industry has been branded as one of the most promising
industries from a global perspective which might help achieve strong economic development within a short period by continuing an upward trend of progress. The basic objectives of this study are to overview the potentials, performances and identify the problems related to this industry from our national perspective. Secondary data are used in this paper from various sources to support this study in establishing the national and international factors in comparison to the potential which may
significantly encourage the dockyard industry performance, as well as the problems addressing assessments and measurements that affect within the industry and finding the answers accordingly.
Prospects for Port Led Regional Maritime Connectivity in Bay of Bengal: Way Ahead
Ports are important medium of trade, connectivity and economic development. Bangladesh being at apex of Bay of Bengal is truly a maritime nation having 700 kilometres long coastline and an array of rivers and water bodies. Our trade, export and import largely depend on Maritime Connectivity. Thus, a well-developed ports and shipping sector will surely give rich dividend in the overall economic matrix of our country. Presently there are a number of challenges in our overall Port sector like lack of adequate draft, hinterland connectivity, port infrastructure and modern equipment etc. However, like many other developing countries, Bangladesh is also giving emphasis on port led economic development and has embarked on mega projects like Matarbari deep seaport and other port related infrastructure development. There are existing regional cooperation arrangements in south Asia with the Bay of Bengal littoral countries like BBIN and BIMSTEC that should deal with mutual trade and connectivity. This paper explores the existing maritime initiatives in the Bay of Bengal region and outlines the need for port led maritime infrastructure development of Bangladesh in achieving greater regional connectivity with the BIMSTEC nations.
Read moreSafe Operation of Inland Water Passengers' Vessels in Bangladesh: Challenges and Policy Options
The safety aspect of the Inland Water Transport (IWT) sector in Bangladesh lacks appropriate attention since long. This is often reflected through disastrous incidents at rivers with loss of valuable life and property. This study aims to identify the challenges faced by operators during the operation of passengers’ vessel in the rivers of Bangladesh and to confirm the appropriateness of the existing governance processes in the IWT sector. The study involves a diagnostic approach using the conceptual framework, where independent variables: Governance, Human elements and Technical aspects of vessels’ operation have been examined by the data collected from both primary and secondary sources. This study finds a number of active and hidden challenges. Some of these challenges are caused by weak regulatory frameworks, absence of Classification Society, poor design/construction of vessels, improper training etc. As a result, accidents of different magnitudes take place, which needs to be addressed by policy-level decisions to make the IWT sector a more acceptable and safer branch of transportation in Bangladesh. The significance of the study lies in the fact that these findings shall be useful guidelines for updating the current strategies for the safe operation of IWT vessels and support different national and international commitments (8th 5YP, SDGs etc.).
Read moreInitiating Marine Spatial Planning process: Resolving conflicts between Chittagong port and other maritime sectors in Bangladesh
Bangladesh is a maritime nation and its seaborne trade is highly dependent on the countries’ prime port, Chittagong which handles more than 90% of the total seaborne trade of the country. In the Port area of Chittagong, there are many more maritime activities other than shipping which includes fishing, oil & gas exploration, military and naval exercises, tourism, movements of naval and coast guard ships, pushing and towing, bunkering to the anchored ships, movement of old ships to scrapping yards. Being one of the largest segments of the maritime economic sectors, Chittagong port often faces conflict with other sectors. Bangladesh initiated several tools to manage its ocean and coastal resources but failed to achieve due prosperity. In this sense, Marine Spatial Planning (MSP) can be a timely tool to minimize conflicts among all stakeholders and maximize the use of all resources through an integrated management process. The study aimed to find out conflicts of the Chittagong port with other maritime sectors and explore the role of MSP to resolve those conflicts. This study adopted a qualitative approach and synthesized data from both primary and secondary sources. To collect primary data, a total of 11 semi-structured interviews were conducted from different maritime sectors. The outcome of this study may include conflict resolution; engagement of different maritime stakeholders. The outcome of this research can benefit port sectors, maritime stakeholders, policymakers, researchers to understand the role of MSP for conflict resolution in Bangladesh.
Read moreSWOT Analysis of Stand in Geopolitics of Bangladesh's Maritime Sector in Achieving Vision 2041
Vision 2041, a continuation of Digital Bangladesh Vision 2021 and a development path aimed by Bangabandhu has begun to be implemented by eliminating the existing demand gap while meeting the new demand ahead. Bangladesh has 1,47,570 square kilometers of land and 2,07,000 square kilometers of sea area to implement findings to achieve 2041. Surrounding this vast sea area of Bay of Bengal, directly influential countries like Srilanka, India, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Thailand, Malaysia and Sumatra of Indonesia share their shores, and Bangladesh has direct influence over landlocked regions of India’s seven sisters- Assam, Meghalaya, Tripura, Mizoram, Manipur, Nagaland, and Arunachal Pradesh- Nepal, Bhutan. These direct and indirect interests through littoral and landlocked, make Bangladesh geopolitically important in the BOB region. All those Conventional ocean forces of these regions and beyond continue to work together to maintain a balance of power across maritime areas, but the archipelago's role in shaping new security architecture as well as the basement is often overlooked. Developing regional cooperation among the neighboring countries may build the geopolitical influences in order to handle the issues such as- security concerns, drug prevention, piracy and robbery, natural calamities, sea-level rise etc. As the geopolitical salience of the ocean increases, maritime development will come to assume a critical role. Aside from Bangladesh, many of the other littoral countries are acquiring a more pronounced maritime orientation and developing closer links with one another. Geographical relevance, it is said that in geopolitics, geography plays a vital role in influencing peace and security in the region. Bangladesh needs effective maritime governance and maritime domain awareness by all littoral states. It needs soft power geopolitics practices together with regional integration a strategic alliance. These can be achieved bridging through dialogues. Based on this condition, swot analysis of Bangladesh's maritime sector was needed to find out its strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. Large sea area, Surrounding landlocked, directly and indirectly influenced regions, geopolitical neutrality are identified as strengths; Security threats, costly ports, Economic slowdown, poor presence in global Associations and lower lands are identified as weaknesses; possibility of becoming hub of economic corridors, land bridge to seven sisters Nepal and Bhutan, energy and mining, trade agreements, indirect pressurizing possibilities are identified as opportunities; Competitions in economic corridors, missing economic goals, less pressure in seaports, inequitable sharing of benefits, sinking of southern regions are identified as threats. Evaluating those analyzed points, few strategies- Budget Increment, Ocean research and oil gas production, regional cooperation, skilled maritime human resources, diplomatic opportunity- are developed to achieve Vision 2041. In this journal, it endeavors to resolve how Bangladesh is responding to the challenges of maritime governance and harvest from the sea to reach the vision 2041 implementation.
Read moreSustainable River Management in Bangladesh through Capital Dredging: Mitigation of Environmental Impacts through Project Management & Operational Best Practices
Well-structured project management, careful and timely monitoring and operational best practices in the dredging projects in different rivers facilitate the local public authorities to mitigate the environmental impacts in Bangladesh. Determining correctly the key factors that affect the environment helps design pragmatic and operational roadmap for maintenance and capital dredging projects. Additionally, the study must consider the difficulties inherent in dredging jobs, the techno-economic mega plan incorporated into Bangladesh Delta Plan 2100, existing river management practices, government policies and regulations, prior to attempting to reflect on what is most needed among stakeholders for the successful implementation of improvement measures. The study maintains that adequate environment concerns should not be integrated later while reflecting upon management, monitoring and operation, but during the project design stage of capital dredging. The study focuses on evaluating the present extent of awareness and practices of environmental mitigation measures regarding the handling of the dredged materials, operational energy efficiencies, stakeholders influence or perception on the implementation of environmental mitigation measures and barriers of application of best practices. Then it tries to determine strategies for developing a sustainable operational framework to mitigate these identified barriers. Finally, it proposes a framework for the mitigation of environmental challenges resulting from dredging jobs. Besides, this study identifies some potential government policy gap which needs to be shrunk tightly for effective implementation of mitigation measures for sustainable dredging.
Read moreRabnabad Channel Dredging project: Challenges and Prospects
The Port Payra is the third seaport of the maritime nation Bangladesh and Rabnabad Channel is the main entrance to it. The 4Km long navigational channel which is connected to the Bay of Bengal will contribute to the immense progress and economic development of this maritime country by building up a strong network, connectivity, and in many other ways. The boom in the economy of Bangladesh largely depends on the development of this river channel, and it is essential to maintain the river channel depth through dredging for the smooth movement of the vessels to the port. Dredging in Bangladesh has been a continuous process as Bangladeshi rivers carry a considerable amount of sediments all year-round. The dredging process involves carrying out excavation, removing naturally deposited sediments or debris such as rocks, bottom sediments, construction debris, refuse, etc., to create adequate space for the transportation of vessels. The PPA (Payra Port Authority), and Belgian company Jan de Nul have agreed to dredge a 75km stretch of the channel, assuring a draft of 10.5 meters that would allow entry and anchoring of ships having a carrying capacity of up to 55,000 tons and also to maintain a certain depth that is safe for navigation. This study seeks to figure out the impact of the Rabnabad Channel Dredging Project on the economy, explore its prospects and identify the challenges faced by the project. It also seeks to find out the economic, social, and environmental sustainability of the project. This study has a qualitative approach that depended on data collected from secondary sources. Moreover, the study also gives an overview of the Rabnabad Channel dreading project and makes a recommendation for dealing with the challenges.
Read moreShipbreaking industry in Bangladesh: Legal, health, safety, & technical issues
Ship breaking is one of the indigenous industries in the world. A ship is dismantled in a yard after her lifespan. Dismantling ship generates huge revenue, support backward industry and creates employment opportunities for a country. Many developed countries were pioneers in this industry. However, this industry moved to Asian countries due to cheap labor and substandard regulations. Being a maritime nation, Bangladesh holds an elevated position in the ship breaking industry consistently. Though having potentiality, Bangladesh reflects a shady image due to disregarded environmental pollution, health and safety issues. Therefore, this study effort to examine the issue concerning ship breaking, identify challenges, and put forward strategies for their mitigation to get the optimum output in the ship breaking industry. The study depended on data compiled from secondary sources. Secondary data were sourced from published books, documents, reports, scholarly articles, and the internet. This study exhibited the existing ship breaking practices relying on the conventional beaching method resulting in environmental pollution, occupational health, and safety hazards. Moreover, the underlying causes are deficiency in legal compliance, less concern in human resources, insufficient technical facilities. Therefore, this study recommends obligatory legal compliance, human resource development, and technical standardization requiring the utmost priority for sustainable development and keeping up the continuous growth of this industry.
Read moreChallenges of Marine Tourism in Bangladesh
Marine tourism is different from the conventional tourism concept which is based on ocean, sea, or coastal regions of a country. Demand for marine tourism is increasing throughout the world. Bangladesh has great potential to thrive in this sector. Bangladesh has the world's longest unbroken sea beach at cox's bazaar and many other natural resources. Every year millions of domestic and foreign tourists visit the coastal and marine areas of Bangladesh including Cox's Bazaar, Kuakata, and beautiful islands such as St. Martin's island, Moheshkhali, Sonadia, etc. Yet the full potential of this sector remains untapped due to various challenges. In this paper, efforts have been made to explore the challenges of the marine tourism sector in Bangladesh. This study analyzed the existing marine tourism industry of Bangladesh. It was mainly an exploratory research. Data were collected from primary and secondary sources. Primary data were collected through a questionnaire survey. Secondary data were sourced from published books, documents, reports, articles, and the internet. The collected data were analyzed with qualitative approaches. The study revealed that there are some potential barriers to gaining success in the good development of marine tourism. Lack of skilled manpower, safety and security issues, lack of infrastructures, and inadequate funding are some remarkable challenges. Based on the findings the paper suggested several recommendations for the developments of marine tourism activities in Bangladesh. This study is expected to help the policymaker, maritime educational institutes, and researchers in this domain.
Read moreMarine Pollution in Chittagong: Present Condition, Possible Impacts and Suggestive Mitigation Measures
A combination of human activities are responsible for marine pollution. It affects the health of the ocean and makes the coastal area vulnerable. Both the developed and developing countries both are affected by marine pollution. Coastal regions and ecosystems are facing diversified environmental pressure throughout the world. Regular discharge of industrial effluents, untreated sewages, oil spills, plastics, chemicals and other hazardous pollutants from different sources are continually affecting Chittagong coastal area. Wide range of pollution in the coastal environment of Chittagong cause threats to the livelihoods of coastal communities, contaminated contaminates seafood and affects marine ecosystems. In this paper, the effort has been made to: examine the issues concerning marine pollution, identify the effect of pollution in the environment and suggest preventive measures for minimizing pollution in this selected area through careful management.
Read moreOpportunities and challenges of biosensors for pollution detection and monitoring of the Bay of Bengal
From the beginning of the first reordered human settlement in this Bengal province to the present, people living in this area have been mostly dependent on the Bay of Bengal and its various resources. Human beings have been collecting the raw material from the ocean to use in the different production processes. It is also a potential source of fossil fuel and the largest source of animal protein. Along with this, human kind use the sea for the transportation of goods and services. In addition, to keep our terrestrial environment worth living in, the marine environment plays an important role. However, overdoing such types of activities, mankind are systematically destroy this delta, the Bay of Bengal, and its ecosystem in various ways. Therefore, it is high time to prevent pollution and protect this reservoir resources, the Bay of Bengal. The sustainable way of doing this is to emphasize monitoring of pollution. Biosensors in the medical and industrial sectors are established because of their biocompatibility, specificity, accuracy, and sensitivity. Some biosensors have already been developed for monitoring environmental pollution and their good performance have been well documented . But, the case of detecting ocean pollution is still under consideration. So, now designing a biosensor for pollution detection in the Bay of Bengal and protecting the reservoir of resources is necessary to achieve the sustainable development goal. Though the method has some limitations, it is nonetheless a new window to harvest the benefits.
Read moreAn Assessment of the Institutional Policy and Legal Regime to Combat IUU Fishing: A Review on the Journey of Bangladesh Towards Sustainable Blue Economy
As a developing coastal State, Bangladesh aspires for harnessing the potentials like ensuring food security, fulfilling nutritional deficiency, rendering employment opportunity, generating income and export earnings through sustainable using of its Blue Economy. Comprehensive combating against Illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing is a holistic approach to protect marine ecosystem, biodiversity, survival of threatened and endangered marine species, and secure livelihood of small-scale fishers. Institutional set-up seeks more personnel and logistic potency along with the modernization of monitoring, controlling and surveillance mechanism for preventing IUU Fishing. The National Plane of Action -IUU Fishing (NPOA -IUU) addressed several general and special measure with some priority actions for preventing, controlling and eliminating IUU fishing from our maritime boundary through enhancing organizational and professional capacity. Ensuring inclusiveness and no one behind philosophy of SDG, integration of the interest and ownership of the small-scale fishers on the territorial water should be considered in the National Plan of Action. Apart from NPOA-IUU, fighting against IUU fishing requires more focus in marine fisheries management, maritime zone related policies, and strategies as well as national policy documents. Legal instruments of the country need incorporation of IUU fishing issue in a comprehensive way to facilitate legitimate fishing and to enhance law enforcement against illegal fishers. Regional and international fisheries management organizations necessitate regular communication, collaboration and information sharing to win over free riders as well as ensure sustainable blue economy.
Read moreSupply Chain Resilience in Catastrophic Disruptions: Towards Mapping Conceptual Frameworks via Selective Literature Reviews
Any management concept cannot be used effectively by practitioners and researchers if a common agreement on its definition is lacking. For Supply Chain Resilience – so many definitions are used that there is little consensus on what it means. Last 30 years, the worlds; trade and industrial sector were blessed with unchanging business environment. The practitioners and researchers were well obsessed with cost-cutting efforts putting the concepts of resilience on the side-lines. The ongoing pandemic and few other catastrophic disasters have caused severe supply chain disruption. This has ultimately turned the situation 180 degree. Last 2 years numbers of articles were published on SCRes. The purpose of this paper is to examine the existing literature to understand the concept of Supply Chain Resilience. Various definitions are reviewed, categorized, and synthesized. This paper expands readers understanding of factors that contribute to the developing of firm resilience to supply chain disruptions. In doing so, it operationalizes firm resilience to understand how supply chain disruption orientated firms can develop resilience to supply chain disruptions. The paper initiated a debate regarding approaches to SC-Res. Although it lauded the utility of studying the SC-Res through resilience lenses but ultimately fall back to the predecessors approaches through Risk-management lenses.
Read moreNumerical Analysis of Tubular XT Joint of Jacket Type Offshore Structures under Static Loading
Jacket structures are made of welded tubular space frames supported by a lateral bracing system. Tubular members are made up of structural steel. In an offshore structure, their primary job is to resist yield and buckling loads. They are also used to resist lateral loads. There are various types of tubular joints like T, K, KT, XT, etc. and each of the joints has significance, depending on the structure design and environment. These joints are subjected to various types of cyclic loading. As a result, fatigue failure occurs with the passing of time. In this study, the Finite Element Model of the XT-type tubular joint has been created and analysis has been done under static loading by using the STATIC STRUCTURAL analysis system of ANSYS 19.2 commercial software. The XT tubular model was analyzed under different load cases, and corresponding values for stress, strain, and deformation were tabulated. Using the maximum stress value, the yield point of the joint was also determined. The results highlighted that as the thickness of the joint increases, the values of maximum stress, strain, and deformation decrease. It was also observed that for tensile and compressive loading, the joint yielded at 30 KN of loading.
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