ACCESS4ALL Group

Living with Water: Floating Gardens as Community-Based Adaptation in Bangladesh

As a Bangladeshi citizen, one successful example of Community-Based Adaptation (CBA) that I have observed is the floating garden system, locally known as Baira or Dhap. This practice is common in flood-prone and wetland regions such as Gopalganj, Barishal, Pirojpur, and parts of Sunamganj, where seasonal flooding makes conventional agriculture extremely difficult.

The main challenge this initiative addresses is prolonged flooding and waterlogging, which submerge arable land for several months every year. With climate change intensifying rainfall and flood duration, these risks have increased, directly threatening food security and livelihoods. Floating gardens allow communities to adapt by growing vegetables on floating beds made of water hyacinth, bamboo, and other locally available materials.

Local people are deeply involved in every stage of planning and decision-making. The knowledge of constructing and maintaining floating beds is indigenous and community-owned, passed down through generations. Farmers decide collectively which crops to grow, when to plant, and how to manage the beds. Women play a particularly important role, both in cultivation and marketing, making the practice socially inclusive.

The outcomes of this initiative are significant. Floating gardens ensure continuous food production during flood seasons, reduce dependence on external food aid, and generate income through local markets. They also enhance resilience by allowing communities to coexist with water rather than resist it through costly infrastructure.

This practice is closely connected to local traditions and identity, reflecting a long history of adapting livelihoods to riverine and wetland ecosystems. However, its use is declining in some areas due to migration, generational change, and a growing preference for modern, externally driven solutions.

Under a Locally Led Adaptation (LLA) framework, floating gardens could be strengthened by providing direct funding to community groups, integrating them into local government adaptation plans, and combining traditional knowledge with supportive modern inputs such as improved seeds and market access. The main barriers to sustaining this practice include policy neglect, lack of institutional recognition, and insufficient long-term support.

Overall, floating gardens demonstrate how indigenous knowledge can offer practical, scalable, and culturally grounded solutions to climate change when communities are placed at the centre of adaptation efforts.