Runa Akter, a resident of the coastal village of Padmapukur in Bangladesh, recalls her ordeal of coping with a shortage of safe drinking water which nearly claimed the life of her unborn baby.
She used to walk miles to fetch drinking water from a remote deep tube well in Koyra sub-district of southwestern Khulna district. Like so many other women in her village, she uses contaminated saline water from nearby ponds for daily household activities.
During her pregnancy a year and a half ago, she got sick and developed complications related to her pregnancy, she told Anadolu Agency.
“I immediately visited a gynecologist, fearing that my condition would worsen in my third month of pregnancy. Doctors feared a miscarriage. However, my baby was saved luckily that time,” she said.
Runa added that due to the rising use of contaminated water, many of her neighbors experienced miscarriages.
Khuku Moni, who hails from the Shyamnagar administrative region in the coastal district of Satkhira, walks two to three miles to fetch potable water for the five members of her family.
They cannot afford bottled water, as the price in the market doubled recently.
According to the Satkhira District Department of Public Health Engineering, the salinity level is 4,400 milligrams per liter (mg/l) in some coastal areas compared with the permitted threshold of 1,000 mg/l.
Bangladesh is a low-lying country with 19 coastal districts that have a combined population of 42 million. The rise in sea level, cyclones, tidal surges, and permanent inundation have affected drinking water sources in the region.
A recent survey by the UN Development Program found that 73% of the people living in five coastal areas are forced to drink unsafe saline water. The survey of 66,234 households said that in the dry season or winter, the salinity level rises to six times above the permissible limit.
Speaking to Anadolu Agency, Shafi Mohammad Tareq, a professor in the Department of Environmental Sciences at Jahangirnagar University, said studies showed that consumption of saline contaminated water or the use of saline water in daily household activities in coastal regions caused hypertension.
“Hypertension is considered to be the root cause of premature deliveries, miscarriages, and other complexities related to the women’s reproductive health,” he said.
Echoing his view, Ahmad Kamruzzaman Majumder, an environmental scientist, said there is a high miscarriage rate among women in coastal areas compared to other districts.
Tareq said the salinity has jumped to intolerant levels over the last three decades due to shrimp farming in coastal areas.
“Farmers brought saline water through artificial canals from the Bay of Bengal to their shrimp enclosures which gradually raised salinity (levels) in the mainland and freshwater sources. This farming method has also cut agricultural land to a nominal (level) in coastal areas,” he added.
Tareq said a continuous decrease in upstream water flow and growing human settlement has also caused an intrusion of saline water in coastal rivers.
Majumder, who is also dean and chairman of the Department of Environmental Science at Stamford University in Dhaka, said the salinity has already reached the rivers flowing in central Bangladesh.
Further, he said that the excessive extraction of groundwater for irrigation or agricultural purposes, human consumption and industrial use apart from the global climate effects have reduced drinking water availability to an alarming level.
According to the World Bank, an estimated 32 cubic kilometers of groundwater are withdrawn annually for irrigation (90%) and domestic and industrial use (10%).
Majumder said the purification of saline water is a costly method that cannot be an alternative.
According to official data, a single reverse osmosis water purification system costs 3 million Bangladeshi Taka ($35,000).
Therefore, both experts suggested restoring agricultural land, harvesting rainwater, digging community ponds, and providing pipe water supply as alternatives.
Akmol Hosen, an officer at the Public Health Engineering Department in southwestern Khulna District, told Anadolu Agency that the whole district has become salinity prone due to its location near the coast.
“We ensure fresh drinking water (supply) in coastal areas through rainwater harvesting, water purifying methods, and digging community ponds where deep and shallow tube wells don’t work,” he said.
Majumder suggested ensuring preserving natural protections against seepage of saline water into the drinking water sources instead of building embankments that destroy the ecosystem.
Noting that the Sundarbans -- a mangrove area in the delta formed by the confluence of the Padma, Brahmaputra, and Meghna Rivers in the Bay of Bengal – have been providing a natural wall against cyclones and the saline water, he said there was a need to preserve such natural systems.
