GreenWatch Report
Water professionals and experts at a day-long consultation in Dhaka on Saturday felt the need for conservation and harnessing of surface water with a view to ensuing sustainable development in water related sectors. They said that a section of experts sometimes wrongly suggested that Bangladesh can meet its water needs through ground water abstraction.
They said abstraction of groundwater for agriculture has led to the surfacing of the problem of arsenic in drinking water – affecting about 75 percent of the country – which has turned into the biggest man-made environmental disaster in the world. Latest studies suggest that arsenic has started entering some vegetables, coconut milk, and in a few cases even rice.
The key tone of the three sessions was for sustainable development of surface water resources, protection of water bodies from pollution, regional and basin-wide management of rivers, effective regional cooperation to ensure the common rivers flow through their natural courses sustaining, ecology, environment and biodiversity.The water professionals generally sought to steer clear of structural interventions – the dominant development paradigm of the water sector for the last three decades – yet on question of increasing the availability water some of them strongly advocated for the construction of barrages on the Ganges and the Brahmaputra as these rivers were not giving expected flows due to water diversion at upstreams. The experts underlined the need for integrated work of all departments, organisations and institutions related to water for sustainable development of the sector.
“Everybody talks of IWRM (integrated water resources management) but the relevant organisations and institutions function separately in an isolated fashion. The end result is lack of integrated work,” so spoke senior water professional Emaduddin Ahmed, former head of the Institute of Water Modelling (IWM).
The national consultation was organised by the Bangladesh Water Partnership for helping develop the post-2015 development agenda for water and sustainable development– phase II. The consultation was intended to build on the earlier consultations held in 2013 to determine post 2015 development agenda priorities. Sustainable development goals and targets for water and their implications, being developed by the UN and others, will form part of the negotiations for SDGs this year.
Four papers on – the status of water resources and water governance, water related disasters; status of drinking sanitation and hygiene, water pollution and water quality in Bangladesh – and future needs were presented in the meet were discussed by the participants before putting forward recommendations for development in these areas.
On water resource and water governance Gopal Chandra Sutradhar, chief of planning Bangladesh Water Development Board, noted that all global environmental agreements recommend basin approach to management of water resources, and called for establishing institutional framework and working arrangement. He said that a holistic approach will lead to opening of many new routes for collaborative programmes; emphasised the need for the provision of environmental flow and suggested that the looming threat of climate change should be taken seriously.
Md Waji Ullah executive engineer of CEGIS noted floods, droughts and cyclones as the key water related disasters. Cyclones on average cause death of 3,000 and injury of injury of 55,000 others per annum. Taking note of the hardware and software options in managing these disasters Waji Ullah underlined the need for a long-term approach. Emphasising the need for regional cooperation to deal with these disasters he also called for enhancing socio-political and institutional support. Space technology should be utilised for damage projection, forecasting and management, he added.
Prof. Mujibur Rahman of BUET noted the improvements in water supply and sanitation that have taken place during the past few decades, except in the hard to reach areas like off-shore islands and char lands that comprise 21 percent of Bangladesh’s land area. A lot of work is still needed to be done to increase the level of hygiene which remains low.
Suggesting improvement of services, minimisation of sustainability gaps, protection and management of fresh water resources and steps to overcome the challenge of climate change as the priority areas for action he drew attention to the critical pollution of the rivers, Buriganga, Turag, Balu and Sitalakhya around Dhaka which otherwise could have fully met the water demand of Dhaka city.
Prof Monowar Hossain, Executive Director of IWM who spoke on water pollution and water quality said that the authorities would not have needed to bring water from the Dhaleswari in Mawa to meet the demand of Dhaka city if the rivers around Dhaka were not so polluted. He said that most of us knew of the problems but did not work to set those right. Every year one per cent of the agricultural land was lost to building of homesteads due to population explosion. Prof. Monowar hossain called for working with patriotism and honesty to overcome problems.
Md Nuruzzaman, chief engineer, department of public health was the chief guest at the consultation where Giasuddin Ahmed Chowdhury, adviser CEGIS presented the keynote paper. Tauhidul Anwar Khan secretary general, BWP, chaired the inaugural and the first working sessions. The group presentation session was chaired by Dr. K Azharul Huq, vice president BWP.
One discussant noted that instead of investing $1.5 billion (Taka 12,000 crore) to bring water from Mawa to Dhaka about Taka 1,500 crore could be utilised to make the rivers around Dhaka pollution-free and get safe surface water from those.
Alongside this many of the participants spoke in favour of popularizing rainwater harvesting – widely practiced in the coastal districts to meet the demand for drinking water – for ground water recharge.
