The idea of Kutubdia Island's oyster reefs was born in 2012, when Chowdhury was a research associate at the Institute of Marine Sciences, at the University of Chittagong, in Bangladesh. The premise was simple: oyster reefs could serve as a defence mechanism against coastal erosion by calming waves before they reached the shore. The idea had worked before in the Netherlands, and had also had success in Louisiana in the US. Now, researchers at Wageningen University would work together with Chowdhury and his colleagues to see if they could improve the situation at Kutubdia Island.
