Syeda Nazifa Tasneem

Tropical cyclones recurrently batter the coastal regions of Bangladesh. It causes a lot of damage in the less resilient regions, especially the cities. This study aims to pinpoint the areas that are both physically and socially susceptible to tropical cyclones using the Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP), Principal Component Analysis (PCA), and various geospatial techniques. The results indicated higher social vulnerability in the western and central regions of coastal Bangladesh. In addition, the areas near the Bay of Bengal exhibited higher overall social and physical risk than others. However, throughout time, the central coast showed the maximum risk level among all. Additionally, the Sundarbans mangrove forest located in the Indian territory showed poor health and degraded forest, which suggests that tropical cyclones might have disrupted the forests. The findings obtained in this study will be beneficial to the emergency responders and policymakers in coastal area management and disaster risk reduction.

Concentrations of chromium (Cr), lead (Pb), copper (Cu), cadmium (Cd), and Zinc (Zn) in the surface water of Dhaleshwari River and tannery wastewater was observed in this study during the Post- Monsoon (2017), Dry (2018), and Monsoon (2018) seasons. The concentrations of Cr, Pb, Cu, Cd, Zn in the river water varied from 0-9.9900 mg/L, 0-0.0412 mg/L, 0-0.0480 mg/L, 0-0.0254 mg/L, 0.0100 - 0.3305 mg/L respectively throughout the study period. Heavy metals were identified in tannery wastewater ranging from 0.0305-150.5000 mg/L (Cr), 0-0.3131 mg/L (Pb), 0-0.1100 mg/L (Cu), 0- 0.0450 mg/L (Cd), 0.0464- 0.3850 mg/L (Zn). Finally, the study revealed that among the considered heavy metals, tannery waste contributed an alarming portion of Cr which had exceeded the standard level all over the study time.