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The southwest coastal delta of Bangladesh is not only geographically home to a dynamic interplay between land and water, and between fresh surface water and saline tides, but also to contentious debates on flood management policy. It has been argued that dealing with delta floods in this region boils down to adopting either open or closed approaches. This paper longitudinally structures the open-or-closed debate based on a number of emblematic water management projects in the region. Departing from a typical open wetland history, river and polder embankments increasingly started to constrain flood dynamics. Upheaval among rural populations in response to the negative impacts of hydraulic engineering plans and works coalesced in efforts to restore open approaches, synthesized in the Tidal River Management concept. Its resemblance to historic overflow irrigation is often used politically as a yardstick to challenge the dominant hydraulic engineering paradigm. This paper argues that dealing with floods in Bangladesh requires plans, policies and projects formulated against the historic background of complex interactions among social processes, environmental dynamics and technological interventions: a lesson to be incorporated in on-going policy-making processes and long-term delta management plans. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Contamination of shallow tube well drinking water by naturally occurring arsenic is a severe societal and human health challenge in Bangladesh. Multiple technological interventions seeking to ameliorate the problem face hurdles in securing social acceptance, i.e. the willingness of users to receive and use a technology. While most papers focus on expert understanding of social acceptability, this paper analyzes how users themselves understand the factors shaping the social acceptability of safe drinking water options in rural Bangladesh. We then deploy such understanding to comparatively assess which factors users see as most important in securing social acceptance for three safe drinking water options in rural Bangladesh: the arsenic removal household (Sono) filter; the deep tube well; and an improved dug well. We draw on focus groups and semi-structured interviews with technology users in six villages across three districts to analyze how users assess the social acceptability of specific arsenic-safe technologies. Our findings highlight that factors such as availability, affordability and compatibility with existing water use practices, as understood by users, are key to securing users' acceptance of a specific arsenic-safe option. In concluding, we point to a future research agenda to analyze user-oriented social acceptability of arsenic-safe technologies in developing country contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Arsenic contamination of shallow hand pump tube well drinking water in Bangladesh has created opportunities for radical innovations to emerge. One such innovation is the household Sono filter, designed to remove arsenic from water supplies. Applying a strategic niche management approach, and based on interviews, focus groups and a workshop, this article explains the Sono filter's failure to establish itself as a successful niche technology. Three explanatory factors are identified: lack of a strong social network (of technology producers, donors, users, and government actors) around it; diverging expectations regarding its potential to be a long-term solution; and lack of second-order learning amongst key actors. Beyond these three factors that help to explain the lack of successful niche formation, this paper clearly shows that the overwhelming dependency on fund-driven projects also deters successful niche formation in the context of the developing world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Water management in Bangladesh is a critical issue owing to growing demand and increasing conflict between alternative uses. Demand for water is growing rapidly in agriculture mainly from irrigation for cereal production, the urban and industrial sector, fishery, inland navigation and salinity control. The supply of clean and uncontaminated water has fallen far short of demand owing to inadequate flows in the Ganges, pollution caused by the disposal of effluents and chemicals, salinity intrusion in the coastal area and arsenic contamination. Further, the availability of freshwater is highly seasonal depending on the presence and duration of the monsoon. The incidence of both flood and drought in a yearly cycle profoundly affects river morphology. This paper identifies various geographic, socioeconomic and environmental factors that shape the water management issues of Bangladesh. The paper mainly concerns the status and trend of these issues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this research is to highlight the various factors relating to the water conflict among the riparian countries in the Ganges basin and to examine the potential benefits of integrated water development. Lack of cooperation between the nations involved who promote a nationalistic approach for the management of the basin have made integrated development difficult. This paper examines the issues related to the utilization of the Ganges water resources, regional water-based development potentials and views of riparian countries on integrated Ganges basin management. It identifies four types of prospective benefit from integrated Ganges basin management: benefits to the river; benefits from the river; reducing costs because of the river; and benefits beyond the river. Finally, it recommends guidelines to overcome the constraints to integrated Ganges management and, hence, achieve overall regional development. This paper stresses the need to develop an integrated water management approach intended to foster regional development and overcome the prospect of severe water conflict along the Ganges basin. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Bangladesh is losing huge food production from the Teesta catchment area due to a lack of availability of irrigation water in the dry and lean period because of unilateral water withdrawal in the upstream country, India. The area, which is directly dependent on the irrigation water of the Teesta river, is the study area for this paper. The study reveals that rice production in Dalia, Nilphamari, Sayedpur and Rangpur regions is badly affected by the irrigation water scarcity. It appears that production is particularly severely affected in Rangpur, making it a relatively more food insecure area in the Teesta basin. The major finding of this study is that more than 4.45 million metric tons of rice production have been missed from the Teesta catchment area since 2006-07, triggered by the massive irrigation failure of the Teesta Barrage Irrigation Project (TBIP) due to reduced water flow in the Teesta river. The total rice production missed in the north-western region since 2006-07 is more than the country's total rice import during 2008/09-2013/14 fiscal years and nearly one quarter of the total boro production in the 2012/13 fiscal year. This reduced food production renders the north-western part of the country a food insecure region from its own production. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Multiple criteria decision making (MCDM) is a process of evaluating alternatives against relevant decision making criteria. Several methods are available to facilitate the evaluation steps. This paper deals with a rural water supply problem in the coastal areas of Bangladesh. Three different MCDM methods - weighted summation, analytical hierarchy process, and novel approach to imprecise assessment and decision environments - were used to evaluate the suitable water supply alternative. The ranking of alternatives obtained from these MCDM techniques produced similar results. Among five water supply alternatives evaluated, rainwater harvesting systems and deep tube wells scored first and second, respectively, for all three evaluation methods. In addition, sensitivity analyses were carried out for the MCDM techniques and these results did not show drastic variations either. This finding implies that while selection of MCDM technique is important, when evaluating similar problems more emphasis should be given to defining the problem comprehensively and thus selecting the relevant criteria and priorities to factor into the decision problem. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Arsenic contamination of groundwater in Bangladesh poses a major environmental health hazard to millions. The efforts of public health programmes to address the problem have often been short-lived and unevenly distributed. The crisis represents a failure of governance and a structural injustice of global dimensions. Rights-based approaches to development have been proposed to address such problems. This paper explores the implications of framing the arsenic problem in terms of social justice and human rights. It describes the efforts of the Arsenic Mitigation and Research Foundation to implement drinking water supplies and health support schemes with marginalised communities. The approach was never explicitly framed as rights-based, but focuses instead on social mobilisation and on securing fundamental human needs. We argue that this will be conducive to social justice, which in turn creates the necessary space for pursuing human rights claims. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After more than a decade of meeting the designated objective of increasing productivity in agriculture, the South West coastal polders of Bangladesh have ended up as different man-made disasters. The failure of the polders to deliver the intended outcome is basically attributed to the lack of understanding of their hydro-morphological characteristics, inadequacy in their operation and maintenance, and failure to take into account their social relationship and culture roles. Changes in socioeconomic settings have also forced changes in the designated functions of the polders, but now the emerging context of climate change has become a major issue in rationalizing the coastal polders. In this context, this study is an attempt to review the historical and ongoing process of rationalization of the South West coastal polders, revealing that it is essential to take an integrated view of the hydrologic cycle and the interactions of human interventions. Finally, this paper recommends that an extended cost--benefit analysis with a multi-objective focus or a multi-criteria analysis, if monetizing is not possible, should be an option in rationalizing this multi-functional infrastructure. Proper macro-planning would require development of an institution capable of dealing with a task which is multi-dimensional and multidisciplinary in nature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Climate change is one of the drivers of change in the Ganges River Basin, together with population growth, economic development and water management practices. These changing circumstances have a significant impact on key social and economic sectors of the basin, largely through changes in water quantity, quality and timing of availability. This paper evaluates the impact of water on changing circumstances in three sectors of the Ganges Basin - agriculture, ecosystems and energy. Given the inherent interconnectedness of these core sectors and the cross-cutting impact of changing circumstances on water resources, we argue that adaptation should not be viewed as a separate initiative, but rather as a goal and perspective incorporated into every level of planning and decision making. Adaptation to changing circumstances will need to be closely linked to water resource management and will require significant collaboration across the sectors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Water governance in urban areas is inherently complex and challenging. During recent decades, water management has increasingly been focusing on integration of the different economic demands regarding water resources. Modern water governance takes the whole water system into account in its aim to optimise the different values of the water system, in close interaction with stakeholders. This paper applies the modern, interactive approach to the management of floods in a country considered to be one of the world's most flood-prone and vulnerable: Bangladesh. Are the pillars of modern water governance practiced in its metropolitan capital Dhaka? The current institutional setting of flood management is analysed following the main pillars of the interactive water management framework: integration, river basin approach, sustainability and interaction. Based on the analysis, general recommendations are formulated to bring further innovation to water and flood management in Dhaka, Bangladesh, and other great deltas in the world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a comparative analysis of the technical and economic parameters of two community led approaches: the semi-closed water bodies and the floodplain water bodies based systems in Bangladesh. The two approaches differ in management, fish production, impact on biodiversity, capital investment and annual variable costs, share of profits and proportional benefits for the poor, and impact on allied businesses--the so-called backward and forward linkages. For the semi-closed water bodies (beels) the fish harvest increased from an annual average of 380 kg ha-1 in 2002 to 921 kg ha-1 by 2005. During the same period, the biodiversity measured for self-recruiting indigenous species, using the Shannon-Weiner Index (H'), increased significantly (P < 0.05) from 2.24 in 2002 to 2.56 in 2005. For the floodplain aquaculture system (Pankowri or Daudkandi model) annual fish production ranged from 1.5 to 1.8t ha-1. Annual net economic benefit per hectare was found to be Taka 37,710 ± 24,600 and 26,819 ± 10,780 for semi-closed and floodplain systems respectively. The net income per kg of product was found to be Taka 44.0 ± 9.0 and 13.0 ± 3.0 for semi-closed and floodplain systems, respectively. The floodplain system tends to use comparatively more feed and fertilizers per unit area that pond-based aquaculture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]