Bhasan Char

Imagine a brand new island. Being surrounded by water serves to keep strangers away and you could build what you want and do what you want. It could be a brave new world. Bhasan Char is just such an island. It didn’t exist in the previous century. But now it lies off the mouth of the Meghna River; a river that washes sediment from the Himalayas all the way to the Bay of Bengal. In doing so, this river created this island.

Let’s stay imagining. As this island is new then we’d imagine little life, perhaps some vegetation though no soil yet. Maybe some birds. But not much else. Also, being little more than a sandbar then it’s close to sea level. So close in fact that storm surges would flood most if not all the island. This is perhaps less idyllic than most people would imagine.

Now add people to our island, to Bhasan Char. To make analysis easy, let’s use a round number of 100,000 people. This equates to 400sq.m. per person; note, Canada has 266,000sq.m. per person. The 400sq.m. must include everything; a home, agricultural land, (solar) energy production and any industry. Seems like a lot to include for a sandbar doesn’t it?

There are plans for a large number of people to live on Bhasan Char. As it is over 20kilometres from the mainland then supplies, such as energy, will need to be ferried frequently and regularly. The supplies must continue even during extreme climate events. Is this the life you imagine when you think of living on an idyllic island? Can Earth keep supporting people to do what they want and when they want?
Shoreline