Bangladesh will face severe water crisis within next couple of decades due to random contamination of surface and ground water, absence of comprehensive water sharing with neighbouring countries and mismanagement in preserving rain water. According to water experts, although the whole world is seriously thinking of conserving their water resources for ensuring water security, Bangladesh is destroying its surface and ground water by throwing wastes in water bodies and over extracting ground water.
They say as the origin of main rivers of Bangladesh is outside the country those rivers depend on upstream water to continue its flow and the country will not be able to address water related problems without integrated initiative with the neighbouring countries. About 92 percent of the catchments area of the Ganges, Brahmaputra and the Meghna (GBM) rivers are located outside Bangladesh while the GBM river basin is around 64 percent in India, 18 percent in China, 9 percent in Nepal, and 3 percent in Bhutan……………….According to a recent study, over 200 dams are to be built by China and India on the Himalayan rivers including the Brahmaputra and the Ganges to meet their water demands that will force Bangladesh to a big water crisis. An India-based Strategic Foresight Group conducted the study titled “The Himalayan challenge: Water security in emerging Asia”. The study report was released on June 28 at an international workshop in Singapore on river basins management.
The study reveals that due to building of such dams, water flow of Bangladesh rivers will change in dry season and up to 22 percent water supply will decrease over the next two decades and the sea level rise may push Bangladesh to the risks of food insecurity, outbreak of water-borne diseases and loss of bio-diversity. Himalayan river basins in China, Bangladesh, India and Nepal will face massive water depletion within 20 years, leading to a decline in food and mass migration, the study says.
The study also says due to natural reasons like glacial melting, the four countries would lose almost 275 billion cubic meters of annual renewable water in the next two decades, more than the total amount of available water in Nepal at present. Water availability is estimated to decline in 2030 compared to present level by 13.50 percent in case of China, by 28 percent in case of India, by 22 percent in case of Bangladesh and by 35 percent in case of Nepal. About 10-20 percent of the Himalayan rivers are fed by Himalayan glaciers and the study says that about 70 percent of these glaciers will be melted by the next century as a result of accelerated global climate change. The study stressed the need for more cooperation between the four nations in the management of the river basins. “What we are looking at here is a major catastrophe… going to happen in 20, 25 years,” the India-based Strategic Foresight Group President, Sundeep Waslekar, told the seminar at the Singapore International Water Week recently.
Around 1.3 billion people live in the Himalayan River Basins (Ganges, Bramhaputra, Indus, Yangtze) in China, Nepal, India and Bangladesh.
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