Excessive salinity in the country’s coastal region has left the people living there into the untold miseries. Salinity higher than the permissible limit has been found in underground water caused by the cyclonic storm, flood and impact of climate change, making it difficult for the villagers to use well, pond and canal water.
An invasion of saline seawater has made the sweet water in ponds, canals and other water bodies of the coast’s villages unfit for any use, according to a study published in different media. Besides, natural sources of water like canals and other water bodies have already dried up.
Coast people are facing serious drinking and cooking water crisis. Drinking saline water for a long time has made the coast people physically weak. They are also compelled to buy saline-free drinking water.
Besides, the excessive salinity is also affecting the agriculture production in the coast. The increasing salinity in water has risked the agriculture, health, livelihoods in the country’s coastal region.
The authorities concerned and local public
representatives will have to take immediate
measures to supply pure drinking and
cooking water in coastal areas
In the last four decades the country’s saline lands have increased to 27 per cent. As coastal people have little access to sweet drinkable water, diseases related to long-time excessive use of saline water have also become a big problem.
Coastal people are always vulnerable to different natural disasters like cyclone, flood and tidal surge alongside the impact of climate change. Many people lost their lives during different types of severe cyclonic storm like Sidr, Aila and Amphan and flood over the last few years.
Apart from the killing people, these natural disasters also destroyed houses, crop lands and poultry farms, washed away fish ponds, uprooted trees and breached dams and embankments, leaving a trail of devastation along coast of the country in several times.
Collaboration among government and nongovernmental agencies is a must to ensure access to safe drinking water for coastal people. However, some families have installed rainwater saving methods in their homes. If the government and non-government organisations install rainwater saving methods at the all households, people can save rainwater and hope for an end to their struggles. Hence, the authorities concerned and local public representatives will have to take immediate measures to supply pure drinking and cooking water in coastal areas.
