Communities can perceive the effects of climate disruption through extreme weather events such as droughts, floods, saltwater intrusion, and sea level rise. It affects the availability and quality of water needed for basic human needs, also affecting good health and productivity of vulnerable communities around the world. Concomitant factors like reduced soil health, accelerated groundwater extraction, widespread ecological degradation and loss of biodiversity is also responsible for safe water scarcity.
Again, poor water management tends to worsen the impacts of climate change. The increasing demand of world population requiring provisions for safe water to use in agriculture, industries, and energy production poses challenge to protect natural water resources such as wetland, rivers and oceans that works as carbon sinks. As water plays a key role in issues such as food security, energy production, economic development and poverty reduction, protection measures for the water sources combined with adoption of climate-smart agricultural techniques and safe reuse of wastewater can mitigate the effects of climate change.
Globally 1.6 billion people are facing economic water shortage, and two-thirds of the world's population is experiencing water scarcity at least for one month every year. Anthropogenic sources such as untreated industrial effluents, improper disposal of domestic waste, agricultural runoffs are the main contributors for contaminated drinking water that cause approximately half a million diarrheal deaths each year.
Challenges in access to safe water: Context Bangladesh: Elevated temperature, rising sea levels, cyclones, salinity intrusion, heavy rainfall etc. is taking its toll on communities living in the coastal districts of Bangladesh. It aggravates the country's Economic Development. Further, an estimated one in every seven people in the country will be displaced by 2050 for climate change induced reasons. The figure is close to 18 million who may have to migrate because of sea level rise alone.
Consequently, poor rural communities will face terrible crisis of safe water. Deep tube wells don't work in many of the sub-districts for want of safe underground aquifers and poor people resort to drink pond water in coastal districts, particularly in Khulna and Satkhira. Community users, who are mostly women, regularly visit the nearest water sources - usually pond sand filters or desalinization plants, only to stand in a long queue to collect water, even when nobody guarantees the water is safe! This causes frequent incidences of diarrheal diseases contributing to poor overall health conditions among the population including children.
In 2012, the country had 8.5% of its total death recorded as a direct consequence of water and sanitation problems. Moreover, the influx of more than 1million Rohingya refugees into the country has created an extra pressure to meet the demand for drinking water in both refugee camps and host communities. So, Bangladesh needs to take urgent steps to achieve the sustainable development goals associated with Water Sanitation and Hygiene.
As a development professional with substantial experience in WASH (Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene) programs, we often listen to the challenges and collect recommendations from diverse groups including NGOs, Media, Academia, Civil Society, and the community itself at various meetings and workshops. According to them, stopping leasing of ponds or lakes, open canals and other surface water sources to commercial users and enabling community farmers and inhabitants in the coastal areas to use those in irrigation or household purposes can be one primary step to solve water crisis.
Another dimension of the water scarcity is due to massive filling in of private sweet water ponds to use the land in constructing buildings and apartments. Preventing this malpractice as well as adopting a long-lasting plan to excavate ponds and canals can bring hopes.
Tube-wells and other water filters don't remain safe as long as a group of elites tend to preserve saline water in Ghers(a confined area for aquaculture)for doing sea-fish business. It should be completely stopped, and necessary government initiatives will have to be ensured to protect safe water sources from saline water pollution or intrusion into natural water reservoirs.
In view of such situation, private sectors have come forward to purify and supply water to the bottom of the pyramid. Depending on the availability of underground aquifers, technologies considered in the coastal areas included desalinization treatment plants, and arsenic and iron removal plants. But measures taken are inadequate to sustain these water technologies. The price of water must also be kept within the affordability of the extreme poor.
UN World Water Development Report 2020 calls for actions to scale up investments in healthy watersheds and water infrastructure together with improvements in the efficiency of water use. The investments should keep provision to systematically integrate adaptation and mitigation of climate change impacts in the planning.
Current government's ambitious delta plan 2100 are often referenced by government speakers from relevant ministries and departments in meetings and workshops. But it is yet to communicate and confirm to mass people whether this plan considered the natural phenomena including tidal flow, biodiversity, and livelihood of coastal people under an integrated water management plan.
Making people devoid of access to potable water is a sheer violation of human rights. Therefore, community voices raised a need of creating a "rights-based movement" by the citizens and demanded a coordination team to form immediately consisting of state representatives and non-government sectors to find and solve water scarcity issues in the coastal region.
The writer is contributor
