Deluge turns to dearth for Bangladesh as age-old water woes take new form | Emma Graham-Harrison and SM Atik | Global development | The Guardian
▻https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2016/jul/06/bangladesh-water-woes-deluge-dearth-rajshahi?CMP=twt_gu
For the first time, the Bangladeshi government is considering declaring some of the country’s smallest districts officially “water stressed”, according to Professor Chowdhury Sarwar Jahan, a prominent hydrologist at the University of Rajshahi.
The region has been shaped by struggles with water for centuries, battles focused mostly on holding it back and surviving flooding, cyclones and rising seas. But now shifting weather patterns have brought a new challenge: dealing with scarcity.
In parts of the country, a combination of shifting monsoon patterns, rising temperatures and a surge in the construction of wells that is draining ground water levels has left some villages seriously short of water. Dhaka wants to make the crisis official.
“The government is planning to declare a water stress area for the first time,” says Jahan, who is also a member of the government’s groundwater task force.
He is working on a research project across a number of local councils, known as unions in Bangladesh. He is collecting data and exploring possible solutions, before the government makes the final decision to go ahead with an announcement that he fears will “cause some panic”.