On 22 March every year, people and different organisations celebrate ‘World Water Day’to raise attention on the global water crisis. This important day became a UN observance day in 1993. This year, the World Water Day is focused on the theme ‘Valuing Water’. Water has enormous and complex values much more than its price. It has values for our households, food, culture, health, education, economics and natural environment.Due to many contributing factors, water is becoming unsafe, unavailable and unaffordable to millions of people of Bangladesh.
Clean, safe drinking water is scarce in our country, like other developing countries of the world. Even people of the urban areas of Bangladesh have very limited access to safe drinking water. Either they have to boil or filter water for making pathogenic microbes free or they have to pay too much to drink it from the little plastic bottles.
Arsenic contamination is the single biggest threat to groundwater sources of Bangladesh. About 85 million people have been at risk of arsenic in drinking water and in food crops. High levels of arsenic in groundwater are causing widespread poisoning in Bangladesh. Arsenic poisoning has already affected about 30-35 million people in Bangladesh. Exposure to arsenic can cause cancer and cruelly damage many vital systems in the human body.
Approximately 40 million people lives in the coastal areas of Bangladesh. This huge population trusts heavily on natural water sources like ponds, rivers, tube-wells for drinking water.Gradually, these resources are becoming unsafe for them.Bangladesh is globally known as one of the most vulnerable countries to climate change. For Bangladesh, water sector is the most vulnerable to the climate change consequences. This is because water and water resources are closely linked with climatic factors. The most damaging effects of climate change are predicted to be floods, salinity intrusion, and droughts.
According to a report of government study conducted in the coastal region, salinity of these water sources is rising because of climate change and some man-made factors. Climate change has caused rising sea levels, which are claiming costly water from freshwater river deltas. Man-made factors contributing to salinity upsurge include poor water management and shrimp farming in various bodies of fresh water.
Already salinity has encroached on areas more than 100km inland from the Bay of Bengal. The impacts of the salinity are projected to be exacerbated by sea-level rise caused by climate change. This jeopardises the country’s food security, endangers public health also.
Water resources used for agriculture have also become inadequate and costly day by day in Bangladesh. The availability of irrigation water significantly fluctuates throughout the year. During the rainy season a vast amount of waterbecomes available,on the other hand, dry seasons bring drought. The existing infrastructure cannot adequately deal with the barrage of water in monsoon season to save water for the drier months. Access to river water is of vital concern to a range of Bangladeshi stakeholders, especially in rural areas, where irrigation is crucial to crop production.
Over fifty trans-boundary rivers entered Bangladesh, carrying water from the peak.These riverseffectively form the Ganges-Brahmaputra-Meghna (GBM) basin. This is the world’s second largest river drainage basin.The Brahmaputra, the Meghna, and the Ganges are important rivers for Bangladesh and these all originate in other countriesat the top. The booming populations of China and India momentously limit the amount of water that ultimately gets to Bangladesh.
Since time immemorial, this river system has supported and maintained the agricultural societies of the basin. These societies are now facing amplified environmental stresses of the river, while demand for water continues to increase because of industrialization and population growth.
For safeguarding this critical resource effectively for the benefit of everyone, we must have a comprehensive understanding of water’s true and multi-dimensional value. We should not overlook the priceless values of water. If we cannot manage this finite and irreplaceable resource appropriately, we shall be in risk of achieving Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 6: water and sanitation for all by 2030. It is prime time for all stakeholders to value water and ensure sustainable use and management of this resource.
Md. Khalilur Rahman Sajal
Executive Director
Voluntary Consumers Training and Awareness Society (VOCTA)
E-mail: sajal.voctabangladesh@gmail.com