Water that threatens life

Aksel Sundström, intern at UNESCAP in Bangkok

Climate change will have severe consequences for people’s livelihoods in south-western Bangladesh, where the already acute water crisis will certainly worsen and alter lives dramatically.

The filthy lukewarm water reaches up to your knees. The toilet is under the surface and the rice fields have been submerged for the last two years. Still, Zozna Mondul’s biggest problem is the lack of water: fresh drinking water.

“I have to spend four or five hours a day carrying water from the nearest functioning well,” she sighs.

Zozna and her family live in Lokha Danga, a village in south-western Bangladesh, where the region’s water crisis is a part of everyday life. The barriers that were supposed to protect the area from rising water levels have the opposite effect when it rains; they keep the water within its boundaries, permanently flooding the village. Zozna, her husband and their two daughters are now forced to live under a tarpaulin on a muddy road, the only place in the village not yet submerged.

“We have not had any crops for the past two years. If we do not get any the next year we are not sure what to eat or where to live,” says Zozna quietly.

She continues to say how nothing functions well in the village, schools are closed and the men have to migrate in search of work.

“Water affects our entire life!”

The situation in this village will be an increasingly common phenomenon in Bangladesh in the coming years. This low-lying coastal country with more than 150 million inhabitants is among the ten nations that will be hit the hardest by climate change.

Mozaharul Alam from the Bangladesh Centre for Advanced Studies explains to me that the biggest challenges for Bangladesh will be the rising sea levels, heavier storms and longer monsoons, which together will worsen the existing water crisis:

“This will lead to health problems and affect livelihoods. Sure, people will adapt to these changes, but every monsoon is a reminder that the poor are already vulnerable. We will witness massive migration from this region in the near future,” he says.

Farmers can adapt to changing conditions in innovative ways by building floating vegetable gardens, planting saline-tolerant rice, or improving their house constructions, but the scarce fresh water supply in the southern part of Bangladesh is still an acute problem. However, it is not yet a major political question in national politics.

Despite promises from politicians and international aid agencies frustration is evident among villagers in need of a quicker response. Shahidul Islam, an activist from UTTARAN, an NGO working for community awareness among the poor, points out that the issue of responsibility should not be forgotten.

“It is we, the people in the south, who bear the cost of emissions made in other countries. We will adapt and find ways, but we need financial support. It is a great injustice that we have not yet seen a swift response from these polluters to our acute needs.” ■

Photo: Aksel Sundström