Water scarcity in coastal Bangladesh: Search for arsenic-safe aquifer with geostatistics

Abstract

This chapter is from the book titled 'Climate, Environment and Disaster in Developing Countries', which is part of the book series 'Advances in Geographical and Environmental Science.'

Water scarcity is a common phenomenon in coastal Bangladesh due to the elevated levels of arsenic and salinity concentrations in groundwater. Since arsenic is a documented carcinogen, this paper mainly seeks to explore arsenic-safe drinking water sources at different depths of shallow and deep aquifer. Inverse Distance Weighting (IDW) method along with the Geographical Information Systems (GIS) was used to fulfil the objectives of this research. The relevant arsenic concentrations in tubewell water were collected with field-testing kits (FTK), tubewell attributes with field observation and questionnaire survey, and spatial data with Geographical Positioning Systems (GPS) from Magura union of Satkhira district in the southwestern part of coastal Bangladesh. The study site covers about 27.58 km2 of area with a total population of 20,375 and a total of 2650 tubewells. About three-quarters of the study site is contaminated following the level of Bangladesh Drinking Water Standard (BDWS) of 50 µg/L. The study identified a few scattered areas for arsenic-safe water “pockets” at different depths in the northeastern part of the study site. The findings could be helpful in formulating a policy to achieve “Clean Water and Sanitation” (Sustainable Development Goal 6) to some extent with exploring the safe aquifer.