Read the whole story<\/p>
This is the second of two stories investigating the quality of coastal communities\u2019 drinking water. Read our investigation from Pakistan here<\/a>. <\/p><\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n Living along the Bangladesh coast, particularly in the southwest, means facing daily hard choices on how to source and distribute freshwater, a commodity that is becoming increasingly scarce due to salt contamination. Shefali Biswas gets her family\u2019s daily water from a pond about half a kilometre from her home in Bani Shanta, a village in Khulna district.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Visiting the pond two or three times a day to collect water is the 55-year-old\u2019s routine during the dry season, between November and May, when rainwater is scarce.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Bangladesh\u2019s coastal population, comprising approximately 40 million people, relies heavily on natural water sources like ponds, rivers and tube-wells for drinking water. However, in recent years ponds and wells have become increasingly saline due to seawater intrusion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Third Pole collected water samples and got them tested to understand the extent of the problem.<\/p>\n\n\n\n During the dry months, a reduced flow from the Ganga River<\/a>, which feeds into smaller streams across the southwest coast of Bangladesh, means that saline tidal water intrudes into these coastal areas, filling the gap left by the lack of freshwater from upstream. Sea level rise due to global warming is exacerbating the problem, as with higher tides even more seawater penetrates the delta. Meanwhile on land, a booming shrimp cultivation industry is contaminating the remaining freshwater ponds.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n A 2016 study<\/a> found that the country has been experiencing 7-8 millimetres per year (mm\/year) of sea level rise on the Ganga\u2019s tidal floodplain, a trend also emerging in the Meghna estuarine floodplain and in the Chittagong coastal plain areas, with a rise of 6-9 mm\/year and and 11-20 mm\/year respectively.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n Then there is commercial shrimp cultivation, which started in the 1980s and led to the conversion of arable land near freshwater ponds into saline pools for the crustaceans. As a result, saline water seeped into the ponds, turning their water brackish.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In 2019, the NGO WaterAid Bangladesh<\/a> examined 57 publicly and privately owned ponds in the Satkhira district, in the southwest of the country. Of these, 16 were fully contaminated by saline water, while the brackish water in 25 others could be used for bathing and other household purposes, perhaps even for cooking, but not safely for drinking. The same situation was observed in other areas along the southwestern coast.<\/p>\n\n\n\n According to the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Bangladesh Department of Public Health Engineering (DPHE), water containing less than 300 milligrams per litre (mg\/l) of chloride is considered fresh, while water that contains 300-600 mg\/l chloride<\/a> is drinkable. In 2013, a study on groundwater<\/a> in the Bengal Delta found that water salinity vastly exceeds this potability level in most areas of the country\u2019s coastal districts. In nature, levels of chloride in water mirror sodium levels<\/a>, thus high levels of the former in drinking water mean an elevated sodium intake, which is an established risk factor for high blood pressure, among other health conditions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Multiple studies have investigated<\/a> the link between high salt intake and hypertension in coastal Bangladesh, observing a direct association between the two<\/a>, particularly in women and people over the age of 35. Consuming an excessive amount of salt leads the body to retain too much water<\/a>, which in turn increases pressure from the bloodstream on the blood vessels, a condition known as hypertension.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Khairul Islam, regional director of <\/strong>WaterAid South Asia<\/a>, said: \u201cThe coastal water was never as saline as today. From our long working experience in the Bangladesh coast we have seen that the scarcity of freshwater is increasing by the day.\u201d A physician by training, Islam says that \u201cif we fail to provide the water [people] need immediately, there will be a severe public health crisis in the coastal zone soon.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Earlier this year, researchers at the Bangladesh Resource Council for Indigenous Knowledge (BARCIK)<\/a> found that skin diseases, stomach inflammation, cardiovascular problems, fatigue and gestational problems are the top five health conditions among people of all age groups in the country. Urinary tract infection (UTI), irregular menstruation, gestational hypertension and preeclampsia during pregnancy are the most common diseases in women. Among these, rates of UTI and gestational hypertension, which can lead to preeclampsia, are on the rise.<\/p>\n\n\n\n To test whether this increase may be related to water salinity in sources commonly used for drinking, The Third Pole collected water samples from eight different points in Khulna and Satkhira districts. The samples, gathered from ponds, reverse osmosis plants, tube-wells and pond sand filters (a water purification tool provided by both government and non-government agencies) were sent to the Bangladesh Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (BCSIR)<\/a> for water-quality tests.<\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"Shefali](\"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/IMG_5430-scaled.jpg\")
<\/div>Rising salinity<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
![\"Womenfolks](\"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/DSCF9260-2.jpg\")
<\/div>Sampling the water<\/h2>\n\n\n\n