DEGRADATION OF ENVIRONMENT AS A THREAT TO THE SECURITY OF BANGLADESH: SOURCES AND CHALLENGES

This article conceptualizes environmental degradation as a direct and existential threat to the national security of Bangladesh. It moves beyond traditional definitions of security to argue that for Bangladesh, environmental threats are not a peripheral issue but a central one. The study identifies the primary sources of environmental degradation and their security implications. These include climate change-induced sea-level rise, which threatens to submerge a significant portion of the country; increased frequency and intensity of natural disasters like cyclones and floods; riverbank erosion, which creates millions of internally displaced "environmental refugees"; and severe arsenic contamination of groundwater. The research analyzes the immense challenges these threats pose to the country's economic development, social stability, and the very viability of the state. The paper concludes that environmental security must be placed at the very top of Bangladesh's national security agenda and requires a massive, long-term national and international effort to address.

For many countries, environmental issues are a matter of quality of life; for Bangladesh, they are a matter of national security. This paper provides a stark analysis of the sources and challenges of environmental degradation as a security threat to the nation. The study is structured around the key environmental threats. The first and most profound is the threat of climate change and sea-level rise. The paper details the scientific projections and their catastrophic implications for a low-lying deltaic country, including the potential for mass displacement and the loss of vast tracts of agricultural land. The second threat analyzed is water security. This section examines both the problem of transboundary water sharing, which creates dry-season scarcity, and the problem of groundwater contamination by arsenic, which the paper describes as the largest mass poisoning in history. The third area of focus is the threat from natural disasters, whose frequency and intensity are being exacerbated by climate change. The core argument of the paper is that these are not just "environmental" problems but are fundamental threats to the country's human security, economic stability, and territorial integrity. The findings lead to an urgent conclusion: Bangladesh must adopt a comprehensive security strategy that fully integrates these environmental dimensions. This requires a two-pronged approach: a massive domestic effort to build resilience and adapt to the unavoidable impacts, and a proactive international diplomacy to secure the global action and assistance needed to address the root causes of these threats.