Creeks have been closed to facilitate the creation of agricultural land and provide protection against floods in Bangladesh for many years. The combination of safeguarding against flooding, the need for agricultural land, and the availability of irrigation water served as the driving forces behind these initiatives. Prior to 1975, such closure works were relatively modest in scale. Some early examples include:
The approach to closures in Bangladesh did not significantly differ from practices elsewhere. However, due to the country's low labour costs and high unemployment rates, methods employing extensive local manpower were preferred.
These works primarily utilised a type of locally developed fascine rolls known as mata. The final gaps were closed swiftly within a single tidal cycle. Notably, the Gangrail closure failed twice.
In the years 1977/78, the Madargong creek was closed, safeguarding an agricultural area of 20,000 hectares. At the closure site, the creek spanned a width of 150 metres with a depth of 6 metres below mean sea level. The following year, 1978/79, saw the closure of the Chakamaya Khal, featuring a tidal prism of 10 million cubic metres, a tidal range of 3.3 metres, spanning 210 metres in width and 5 metres in depth.
In 1985, the Feni River was dammed to create an irrigation reservoir covering 1,200 hectares. The project was distinctive in its explicit request for the utilisation of local products and manual labour. The 1,200-metre-wide gap needed to be sealed during a neap tide. On the day of the closure, 12,000 workers placed 10,000 bags within the gap.
In 2020, the Nailan dam, originally constructed in the 1960s, experienced a breach that necessitated repair. At the time, the basin covered an area of 480 hectares, with a tidal range varying from 2.5 to 4 metres (neap tide to spring tide). The breach spanned a width of 500 metres, with a tidal prism of 7 million cubic metres. The closure was accomplished by deploying a substantial quantity of geobags, weighing up to 250 kg, though the majority of the bags in the core were 50 kg. The gap was progressively narrowed to 75 metres, the width of the final closure gap, which was sealed in one tidal cycle during a neap tide. To facilitate this, two rows of palisades were erected in the gap, and bags were used to fill the space between them, effectively creating a cofferdam.