The Socio-Technical Challenges of Safe Water Supply in Rural Bangladesh

The shortage of potable water in rural Bangladesh is the result of lack of water conservation strategies, inaccessibility to affordable water supply options, and the weak institutional framework (Adeel, 2001). The rural poor in the inland and coastal zones suffer from a scarcity of potable water due to the presence of arsenic and salinity in the groundwater. Different options have been considered to provide safe drinking water to rural people (Azizian et al., 2003; Jalil, 2003; Johnston and Heijnen, 2001; Sutherland et al., 2001). Social, economical, technical, environmental and institutional factors affect the viability of these water supply options. The majority of rural people drink contaminated water, even though they know that it contains arsenic (Rammelt, 2003). Consequently, they suffer from various skin lesions, renal cancer, and gangrene in their legs, skin, lungs, bladder, and liver (SOS-arsenic.net, 2004). Considering all these factors, this paper develops a theoretical framework for assessing appropriate potable water supply options from the socio-technical, economic, environmental, and institutional perspectives. The framework also explains how a sustainable water management plan can be developed using a policy orientation. This paper presents the trends of water supply in both arsenic-affected villages and salinity-affected coastal areas and describes the social, technical and economic issues, including the institutional drawbacks of the present water supply system, which need to be overcome. The paper then presents an alternative approach for providing safe water through the use of appropriate water supply options as part of a sustainable water management plan for rural Bangladesh. 

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