Home ›› 15 Mar 2023 ›› Editorial
The water scarcity is mostly man made due to excess population growth and mismanagement of water resources. Some of the major reasons for water scarcity are: Inefficient use of water for agriculture and biased system of utilisation. Bangladesh is one of leading agricultural grower countries in the world. The consumption of water for irrigation is amongst the highest. Traditional techniques of irrigation cause maximum water loss due to evaporation, drainage, percolation, water conveyance, and excess use of groundwater. As more areas come under traditional irrigation techniques, the stress for water available for other purposes will continue.
Even though four of South Asia’s largest rivers run through Bangladesh, the country struggles to provide sufficient drinking water for its inhabitants, in large part because of pollution. Because of contaminated surface waters in the region, 90 per cent of the population relies on groundwater. The ground water level in and around Dhaka is depleting very fast. Bangladesh Water Partnership (BWP) and 2030 Water Resource Group (WRG) study warns that by 2030, the upper aquifer of the greater Dhaka area may run out of water, especially in the dry season.
The nation withdraws an estimated 32 cubic kilometers (7.7 cubic miles) of groundwater annually, 90per cent of which is used for irrigation and the rest for domestic and industrial purposes. A major part of the industry is the group of some 800 washing, dyeing and finishing factories, known in the trade parlance as WDF, which consume as much as 300 liters of water to produce 1 kilogram of fabric (about 36 gallons a pound) — six times more water than the prescribed international best practice.
Outside of agriculture, a key consumer of water in Bangladesh is the country’s garment industry. Ready-made garments account for more than 80per cent of Bangladesh’s exports by value, and most of the 3,862 factories that produce them are concentrated in Dhaka and the surrounding districts of Gazipur and Narayanganj, as well as Chattogram, according to Mapped in Bangladesh (MiB), a four-year research initiative of the BRAC University.
Not only excessive use of water, but we are also contaminating the ground and surface water. A recent study shows the quality of water in many parts of Bangladesh has deteriorated, leaving a significant part of the population at potential threat of water pollution. The study looked at both conventional pollutants (heavy metals, pesticides, fecal pollution) and emerging contaminants.
A study found fecal coliform present in water almost all over the country, along with various pesticides and, more recently, emerging contaminants such as antibiotic residue, fluorescence whitening agent and microplastics some other heavy metal like lead. These heavy metals concentrations in both ground and surface waters of Bangladesh often exceed the maximum permissible limit recommended by the WHO for drinking water.
Today, 98 percent of Bangladesh’s population have access to water from technologically improved water sources. However, the water quality is poor. E. coli bacteria was present in 80 percent of private piped-water taps sampled across the country, a similar rate to water retrieved from ponds.
A research as the part of the World Bank’s water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) Poverty Diagnostics initiative in 18 countries, including Bangladesh. It has been observed that in Bangladesh “Poor water quality and sanitation can hold back a country’s potential because unsafe water and poor sanitation are linked to nutritional disadvantages in early-childhood. In Bangladesh, more than one-third of children under five are stunted, limiting their ability to grow and learn. Bangladesh has made great strides in expanding access to water and can build on that progress by focusing on improving the quality of water and sanitation.”
The Jahangirnagar University study identified overgrowth of population, industrialization, rapid urbanization, improper sanitation, and the use of agrochemicals as being responsible for the deteriorated quality of water in Bangladesh. It also recommended formulating and implementing strict laws on water quality in the country.
Citizens are not properly disposing of the unused motor oil, pesticides, leftover paints orpaint cans, Mothballs, Flea collars, Household cleaners, A number of medicines and contaminating the ground and surface waters. This will likely affect the industrial zones … leading to widespread land subsidence and severe shortfall in drinking water supply from groundwater resources.
Further, naturally occurring arsenic in ground water also affects people: about 13 per cent of the country’s water sources contain arsenic levels above Bangladesh’s threshold. The Chattogram and Sylhet divisions suffer most from arsenic contamination. Climate change is increasing the intensity and frequency of natural disasters that disrupt water and sanitation services. During times of disaster, about a third of households in the country’s high-risk areas switch to contaminated, unimproved water sources. The coastal areas are increasingly suffering from salinity-intrusion, which is affecting the poor more.
Solutions
Bangladesh has successfully eliminated the practice of open defecation. Still, about 50 million people use shared, rudimentary toilets, and only 28 percent of toilets are equipped with soap and water. In urban areas, slums have poor access to clean water and safe sanitation. Large-city slums have five times less access to improved sanitation and have the highest rates of childhood undernutrition in the country.
There is scope for Bangladesh to improve access to sanitation beyond the household level to public places, schools, health facilities, and workplaces,” says George Joseph, report co-author and World Bank Senior Economist. “Only about half of manufacturing enterprises in Bangladesh have toilets. Only half of the primary schools have separate toilets for girls, and 1 in 4 adolescent girls miss school during menstruation. A safe water and sanitation environment will encourage more women to participate in the
work force.”
There is a long-time discussion that water management authorities in Bangladesh have drawn up a plan to recharge, or refill, the aquifers serving Dhaka and other areas, which are being depleted by one of the highest groundwater extraction rates in the world. The plan calls for injecting storm water, reclaimed water, desalinated water and potable water into the aquifers, which, in the case of Dhaka, is falling by up to 3 meters (nearly 10 feet) a year.
Experts suggest the government not allow any more new industries in the greater Dhaka area and shift the existing ones to the riverside so that they can use surface water for industrial use.
Water harvesting programme in the ponds, percolation tank, repairing of check dams /sluice, stream diversion to dried open wells and constructions of new form ponds are some of the typical works that directly contribute to rising water levels in bore wells.
It has been suggested that the use of the harvested rainwater entails drinking, non-drinking household uses (i.e., cooking, bathing, laundry, and flushing toilets), agriculture (includes livestock production or homestead gardening), water resource management (e.g., groundwater recharge), and other uses (e.g., washing vehicles and equipment, and water for fire protection)
Rainwater harvesting, the cheapest alternative to the traditional water sources and is a simple process to preserve rainwater for further use by collecting, storing, and purifying if needed.
The rainwater management practices were categorised into three contexts: urban, peri-urban (e.g., municipalities, and Upazila), and rural. Moreover, to understand the catchment area, infrastructures were divided into (1) multi-storied residential building, (2) residential structure other than multi-storied building, (3) commercial establishments, (4) educational buildings, and (5) other establishments (e.g., community buildings, government/NGO offices, and hotels). Practices of RWH in Bangladesh were analysed for the past 12 years (2010–2021). This timeline was considered because it covers the implementation period (2010–2021) of the country’s first perspective plan when the 6FYP (FY2011–FY2015) and the 7FYP (FY2016–FY2020) were implemented and includes both the completion of the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) period and beginning of the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) era.
Bangladesh authorities has taken initiative the introduction of a provision for mandatory rainwater harvesting for buildings across the country since 2012. Again the government on February 11 2021 published a gazette notification, making the revised Bangladesh National Building Code (BNBC) a law. However, the code will remain ineffective, unless the proposed authority to enforce BNBC is not formed, according to leading professionals. Dhaka North City Corporation (DNCC) Mayor Atiqul Islam declared that 10per cent of the holding tax will be waived for infrastructures having their own rainwater harvesting system.
Bangladesh must use both surface and ground water judiciously and also go harvesting rain water as well as protect this scared resource from pollution.
The writer is Non-Government Adviser, Bangladesh Competition Commission. He can contacted at: mssiddiqui2035@gmail.com
