DHAKA: Bangladesh is, among the countries, at the highest risk from river floods in the world, with an increasing number of people threatened by climate change and economic growth in low-lying regions.

A new study said, reports Zee News.

According to the study, the top 15 countries, including Bangladesh, India, Pakistan and China, account for nearly 80 percent of the total population affected every year.

The US-based World Resources Institute think-tank and four Dutch research groups estimated that some 21 million people worldwide were affected by river flooding in a year.

‘That number could increase to 54 million in 2030 due to climate change and socio-economic development,’ a report by Institute for Environmental Studies of the VU University Amsterdam said.

These countries, at the risk-list, are all considered least developed or developing.

Roughly 167,000 people in the US, the highest-ranked high-income country, are affected every year by floods, the study said.

Climate change is a greater driver of change in population exposure to river floods than socioeconomic development, because both the frequency and intensity of river floods is expected to increase due to climate change in many areas, it said.

‘This phenomenon would expand flood-prone areas, and make floods more likely to occur in those areas more often,’ the study said.

‘There will be a huge increase in risk, especially in South East Asia,’ Hessel Winsemius, an author of the study at Dutch independent research institute Deltares, told the media.

BDST: 1723 HRS, MAR 07, 2015