Sharing water, sharing opportunities
INTERNATIONAL World Water Day is observed on March 22 each year to underscore the importance of freshwater and advocate for the sustainable management of freshwater resources. This year, the focus of World Water Day will be on trans-boundary waters: sharing water, sharing opportunities.
About 70% of the earth's surface is water, but only 2.5% of it is freshwater, the rest being saline. Only 0.26% of all freshwater stock is globally available to us for use, but the quantity is quite enough for a world population of 6.4 billion.
The world's 263 trans-boundary lakes and river basins include the territory of 145 countries covering nearly half of the Earth's land surface. Due to unequal distribution of water resources and seasonal fluctuations in its availability, many countries are chronically water-stressed, while countries like Bangladesh suffer from severe seasonal variations in water supply.
Water crisis in Bangladesh is also largely due to the unavailability of trans-border water from India. Bangladesh, being the lower-most riparian country of the three international river basins viz. the Ganges, the Brahmaputra, and the Meghna, receives about 85% of the water every year. It receives about six times the required water during monsoon, while facing severe scarcity of water during dry season, receiving less than half of the requirement.
These two extreme conditions are major impediments in the development activities of the country. The country has been negotiating mainly with India as co-riparian for harnessing, developing, and sharing trans-boundary river water for equitable distribution. Over the years, sharing trans-boundary river water has been a major cause of dispute between India and Bangladesh.
The most successful achievement of the Joint River Commission negotiation was the treaty signed between the two countries on sharing the Ganges water at Farakka in 1996. The agreement is a classic example of proper diplomatic efforts between two neighbouring countries, and this model should be followed to settle existing disputes on sharing water of Teesta and six other common rivers: Dharla, Dudhkumar, Monu, Khowai, Gomoti and Muhuri.
However, sharing internal water is also a crucial issue for overall socio-economic development. Much ground water, which had been the best source of safe drinking water, is contaminated with arsenic.
Salinity intrusion in the southwest is rendering groundwater unfit for consumption. Excessive withdrawal of groundwater for irrigation has also lowered the water table in many areas below the suction limit for withdrawing water through hand tubewells.
In fact, approximately 95% of the groundwater extracted is for irrigation, mainly for boro rice production and only 5% is used for domestic purposes. An imbalance exists in the usage of freshwater in urban and rural areas. The average per capita water use in Dhaka is around 160 litres whereas the amount hardly crosses 20 litres per day in rural areas.
With an estimated current population of over 12 million, and a daily average per capita demand of 160 litres, the city needs about 2 billion litres of water per day. Dhaka Wasa is unable to provide more than 80% of this requirement.
Moreover, the current groundwater extraction exceeds the recharge rate, causing the groundwater to be mined systematically and be depleted. By 2015, the city's population may exceed 20 million with a daily demand of about 3.2 billion litres!
All this calls for an urgent need to alleviate the demand on the upper aquifers and explore more sustainable sources to augment the present water supply, which implies a conjunctive use of groundwater and surface water in order to maintain the balance between demand and availability.
A systematic framework and sustainable mechanism needs to be developed so that a portion of the water extracted from the ground does not have to compete with other usage, rather be kept reserved for drinking purpose only.
Bangladesh certainly needs regular flow of water from 57 trans-boundary rivers with India in order to meet this urgent need. With the newly-elected government in place in Bangladesh, which historically has had a good relations with India, the issue is likely to be treated amicably by both the parties.
The government here should start planning arbitration strategy with the in-coming Indian government based on strong data and evidence. They should also develop diplomatic channels to influence and convince India to share water. Mutual respect and understanding between these two governments can not only solve many issues but can also promote peace, security and sustainable economic growth.
To secure our water supply for the future, we have to concentrate on using surface water. We are hopeful that the current government will be able to fight against water poverty in Bangladesh in the near future.
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