Water

Bangladesh is a riverine country. As such, water management was never thought to be a problem in the country. However, as population pressure is growing, demand for water has increased manifolds because of irrigation, domestic and industrial use. Demand of water for the purpose of irrigation is generally met from surface water sources. However, farmers in the northern part of the country use deep tube wells extensively. Household demand for water in rural areas is met from both surface and underground sources (using hand tube-wells). Household demand for water in urban areas is met from underground waters and treated river waters. Growth of urban centres means increased demand for clean water in cities. This puts added pressure on the government to keep city rivers clean or to spend more money for water treatment. Industrial demand for water is normally met from surface water sources.

Availability of safe drinking water is an indicator of development. Countrywide, about 95.5 percent of the urban population and nearly 88.3 percent of the rural population have access to safe drinking water supply (2001 pop census). Despite general availability of safe water, water born diseases are responsible for majority of the mortality and morbidity cases in Bangladesh.

In rural areas, due to lack of awareness and accessibility problem, use of tube-wells  water for all domestic purposes is limited to about 46 percent of the population. Most of the drinking water (about 85%) come from groundwater sources. In some rural areas, increasing demand for irrigation water will affect availability of drinking water. Arsenic pollution of groundwater is also observed in some parts of the country. According to LGRD groundwater table was within the suction limit of eight meters in 65-70% of the country in 2000, which was used about 75 percent in early 90's. This affected more than one hundred thousand hand pumps out of about 2.5 million hand pumps in the rural areas.

Urban areas already depend on deep tube-wells for supply of potable water. But due to rapid decline in recharge area over the local groundwater basins and excessive withdrawal rate, water levels is falling in many parts of the country. In Dhaka city, groundwater level has fallen by 20 meters in the last decade alone.  The four major cities - Dhaka, Chittagong, Rajshahi and Khulna need to develop surface water based alternatives in order to satisfy their long term needs. Dhaka may rely on Shitalakhya and Buriganga, Rajshahi on Ganges, and Chittagong on Karnafuli as future source of water supply. Khulna has a more difficult problem due to increased salinity in surface water sources.

The water quality issue is gradually becoming very important in Bangladesh. Discharge of untreated and semi-treated wastewater from pourashavas and industrial sources is causing serious water pollution. T

The main source of safe drinking water in Bangladesh is tube-wells  water. As per latest census, (2001) as many as 84.7 percent households in Bangladesh use tube-wells  water for drinking. Such percentage is 69.9 in the urban areas and 88.0 in the rural areas. But in the recent years groundwater arsenic contamination has emerged as a acute problem. In terms of extent and severity of the problem, Bangladesh is the most vulnerable country in the world. Out of the 64 districts as many as 61 district has arsenic contamination above the maximum permissible level (0.05 mg/l). At least 21 million people are now exposed to the arsenic poisoning. It is believed that the source of arsenic in Bangladesh groundwater is geological and the cause of contamination is over exploitation of groundwater, which facilitates oxidization of pyrites or arsenic-pyrites and ultimately release arsenic into groundwater.

Traditionally waste water from households, be it in the rural or in the urban areas, is ultimately discharged in the open space or in the water bodies. There is only one exception to this traditional practice in the capital city Dhaka. There is a waste water treatment plant adjacent to Dhaka which treats waste water from municipal sources, but the treatment is not anaerobic. Therefore, waste water from domestic sources in Bangladesh do not emit any significant amount of methane gas.

The growing industrial base with its no or weaker anti-pollution mechanism is the main reason of land and water pollution in the country. So far, most of the industries have been dumping their effluent directly into nearby water bodies without treatment. The fact that, many of the toxic chemicals dumped on the land or into the water are not biodegradable and that they may find their way into human food chain is a matter of serious concern. Many industries are emitting a significant amount of SPM and environmentally dangerous gases directly through the Industries also discharge huge quantities of waste water into surface water systems.

In most cases such waste water is not treated before being discharged. Only recently a few of these industries have taken measures to treat their waste water before releasing it to the nearby surface water system. But there is no systematic database regarding the actual amount of industrial waste water being treated anaerobically. Therefore, methane emission from industrial waste water could not be estimated.

Water Supply and Sewerage Dhaka Water and Sewerage Authority (DWASA) is solely responsible for providing water to the inhabitants of Dhaka City. It is also responsible for disposal of sewage. In 1997, the peak shortage was 490 million litres per day, which came down to 470 million litres per day in 1999. With the commissioning of the Syedabad water treatment plant, the situation has improved slightly in recent years.

WASA's sewerage network covers only parts of the city. At present, there are 47,338 sewer connections in
the city. Buildings constructed outside the network have to be provided with septic tanks and soak pits for disposal of domestic waste water. High-rises linked to the sewerage network discharge huge quantities of
wastewater into the pipeline. As the pipelines have not been designed, in many cases, to carry such huge volumes of wastewater and are not properly maintained, it sometimes results in overflow through manholes and leakages in the pipeline creating environmental hazards in the locality.

It is imperative to view the issue of improvement in water and sanitation as a prerequisite for hygiene and nutrition. The Government has made a commitment to achieve proper water and sanitation conditions for all by 2010, far ahead of the Millennium Development Goal of 2015. In Bangladesh, safe drinking water coverage is 74 percent while sanitation coverage is only 33 percent (29 percent in rural areas and 57 percent in urban areas), while 25 percent use unhygienic latrines and 43 percent do not use latrines.

Bangladesh’s drinking water and sanitation policies have focused on installing millions of tube-wells since the adoption of the policies in the 1970s. The challenge of safe drinking water was almost resolved until the presence of arsenic was discovered in ground water. Considering the Government commitment to address the arsenic problem and achieve total sanitation by 2010, water and sanitation will be recognised as a separate sector (WSS) in the next Three Years Rolling Plan, and the necessary budget will be allocated to achieve the government commitment and targets. Bangladesh is projected to require an average of US $ 4.9 per capita (without the costs entailed for management and treatment of arsenic contamination) over the eleven-year period to meet the water and sanitation goals.

In the area of water and sanitation the goal is to reduce the number of people who do not have access to safe water (26 percent) or sanitation (66 percent) by half in 2006, reduce water borne morbidity and mortality, reduce the number of people subjected to arsenic contamination, and ensure access to sanitary community latrines in villages, bazars, mosques and schools with particular attention to women’s needs. The Government has already taken a number of steps in these areas.

However, more needs to be done. This includes developing strategies on water and sanitation to achieve MDGs, introducing water supply and sanitation projects for all urban areas; installing water supply options capable of minimizing water problems like excessive arsenic, iron, and salinity, encouraging safe use of surface water, introducing water quality monitoring and surveillance programme, introducing an awareness programme regarding hygiene practice among the common people, strengthening of capacities of stakeholders of the WSS sector; undertaking research and development on appropriate and affordable technologies, and hygiene promotion for water and sanitation.