Groundwater is a precious mineral as important as life and livelihood. Around 80 per cent people of Bangladesh depend on groundwater. Bangladesh along with China, India, Indonesia, Iran, Pakistan and Turkey extract most of the groundwater in the world, according to a recent United Nations study report. Bangladesh, a country of 250 rivers, including 54 international rivers, could have topped the list of countries, which use the highest amount of renewable surface water, dethroning Brazil, Russia and the US.
According to a media report on Tuesday, people on one hand pollute renewable surface water unscrupulously while on the other; they dig deeper and deeper to extract water from ground aquifers which are depleting 30-32 cubic kilometers every year. Bangladesh, which had around 24,000 nautical mile first-class river routes during independence, should make water education a must and people should be taught that waste of every drop of water means waste of a precious mineral like oil. Once renewable energies cover the whole world, fossil fuel, which pollutes air heavily, having a heavy carbon footprint, may lose relevance but water won’t ever lose its strong logic. As long as people will live on the planet, they will need fresh and safe water even on their deathbeds. The same is the case with other living beings.
One of the features attractive for foreign direct investment in Bangladesh is that it has a profuse supply of sweet water which industries need most. Export processing zones are consuming huge amounts of groundwater, which are depleting the water table. Of the extracted groundwater, only 10 per cent water is used in households but the rest of the water is used for irrigation in farmlands. To check the depletion of groundwater, the government needs to regulate the extraction of water by industries so that they can’t extract as much underground water as they wish.
Overuse of groundwater is inviting a deadly disease – arsenicosis. According to a recent report of the World Bank as many as 20 million Bangladeshis are at risk of being infected with arsenic problems as they are drinking arsenic-contaminated water. If the problem of excess extraction of groundwater persists, the country may face drought. In the lean season, it is likely to be burnt by drought and during monsoon it may be flooded. For saving the rivers, Bangladesh must act proactively both regionally and internationally to stop the unethical withdrawal of water in the upper riparian countries like India.
