MoU Cooperation Italy - People's Republic of Bangladesh: Three-year Collaboration for Environmental Sustainability of Waterways in Bangladesh

07/12/2021

Bangladesh - At the Center for Environmental and Geographic Information Services (CEGIS), a research centre of excellence established by the Government of Bangladesh under the Ministry of Water Resources (MoWR), whose work embraces different sectors of water resources planning and management, climate change, for development projects in Bangladesh; a Memorandum of Understanding has been signed with the support of the Italian Embassy in Dhaka in the person of the Honourable Ambassador Dr. Enrico Nunziata and Dr. Mattia Ventura - Honourable Chargé d'affaires a.i.;

A bilateral cooperation between Italy and Bangladesh is therefore seen as a synergy:

CEGIS - Center for Environmental and Geographic Information Services - Dhaka (Bangladesh).

ICTP - The Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics - Trieste (Italy).

UniPD - University of Padua - Department of Civil, Building and Environmental Engineering, Department of Geosciences and CIMoLa - Centre for Hydrodynamics and Lagoon Morphodynamics - Padua (Italy).

KIASMA S.r.l. - Engineering, procurement, research and development of patents applied to Discharge Systems for the Dredging Industry - Zero Branco (Italy).

The MoU establishes a collaboration on activities that contribute to achieve the goals of the Bangladesh Delta Plan 2100 (BDP2100) in the fields of climatology with the development of a protection scenario that defines the impact of climate change on sediment dynamics, using also hydrological modeling, monitoring and analysis with sediment quantity prediction, with the aim to support dredging plans in Bangladesh through integrated state of the art measurement systems also regarding the Technologies applied to the discharge lines for the dredging sector; an Italian solution that wants to contribute to the reduction of CO2 emissions in the Atmosphere and reduction of Microplastics in the Marine Ecosystem.

The aim is to establish an academic and research collaboration, both with training of technical staff and with the activation of joint projects with applied research, exchange of students and teachers in the field of sustainable management of river and coastal environment, with particular reference to the transport of water and sediments having as focus the impacts of climate change and the solutions for a targeted and sustainable dredging in Bangladesh using advanced technologies.

The ceremony was attended by:

Mr. Kabir Bin Anwar - Senior Secretary, Ministry of Water Resources and Chair Person, Board of Trustees

Dr. Mattia Ventura - Honorable Chargé d'Affaires a.i. Italian Embassy in Dhaka

Mr. Malik Fida A Khan - Executive Director CEGIS

Prof. Engr. Motaleb Hossain Sarker - Director of Water Resources Management Division

Prof. Atish Dabholkar - Director ICTP ADG UNESCO

Prof. Filippo Giorgi - Climatologist at ICTP

Prof. Marco Marani - UniPD - CIMoLa - Centre for Lagoon Hydrodynamics and Morphodynamics

Prof. Luca Carniello - UniPD - ICEA Department of Civil, Building and Environmental Engineering

Prof. Andrea D'Alpaos - UniPD Department of Geosciences

Prof. Stefano Lanzoni - UniPD - ICEA Department of Civil, Building and Environmental Engineering

Dr. Martina Crotti - Kiasma - C.E.O.

Mr. Enrico Crotti - Kiasma - Board Member

Dr. Eng. Renzo Taffarello - Kiasma - Board Member

Thanks to Dr. Enrico Nunziata, Italian Ambassador in Dhaka for the constant support