Human habits to blame for wasting copious amount of water: Experts

A lot of water is wasted every day due to human habits. The day is not too far away when water shortage will be as acute as the present-day gas crisis, experts have predicted.

They came up with the warning in a seminar held on Wednesday (22 March) at Hotel Radisson Blu Bay View in Chattogram on the occasion of World Water Day. The seminar was held under the theme "Accelerating Change To Solve The Water And Sanitation Crisis'', jointly organised by the UK-based organisation Water & Sanitation for the Urban Poor-WSUP and Chattogram WASA.

Chattogram Wasa Managing Director (MD) Engineer A K M Fazlullah was the chief guest of the event, which was presided over by Chattogram WASA  Chief Engineer Makshud Alam.

Head of Civil Engineering Department of Chittagong University of Engineering and Technology (Cuet) Professor Dr Asiful Hoque, Chattogram WASA Superintending Engineer Mohammed Ariful Islam attended as special guests. Farah Sharmeen Aolad, Public Affairs Communication & Sustainability head of The Cocacola Foundation (in Bangladesh), was also present as a guest.

In his keynote speech, CUET Professor Dr Sudip Kumar Pal said, "Once people used to burn gas all day thinking that it would never run out. Now they are not getting gas even at high prices. A similar situation awaits for water."

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"Three out of ten people (2.4 billion people in 2020) do not have access to safe drinking water, six out of ten (4.9 billion people in 2020) do not have access to safely managed sanitation services and one out of eight (878 million people) practice open defecation, which has huge implications for human health and the environment," he said noting that water use has been increasing worldwide by about 1% per year since the 1980s is expected to continue increasing at a similar rate until 2050, accounting for an increase of 20 to 30% above the current level of water use. 

"In Bangladesh, about 87% of households have access to water resources, but only 10% have access to the piped water supply. More than 1.8 million people in Bangladesh lack access to an improved water source and 36 million lack improved sanitation. In Chattogram, out of its population of 165 million, 68 million (41% of the population) lack access to a reliable, safely managed source of water, and 100 million (61%) lack access to safely managed household sanitation facilities. The Chattogram city's water production infrastructure met only 35 percent of the total demand, while in particular areas near the coastal belt have alternative solutions with questionable water quality," Professor Sudip added.

He further added that there is no sewerage in Chattogram as most of the population use septic tanks and a minority rely on wet pit latrines; an estimated 200,000 m3 of faecal sludge accumulates in Chattogram's tanks and pits every year.

"FSM (until mid-2017) was in a legal and policy grey area between Chattogram Water Supply and Sewerage Authority (CWASA) and CCC CWASA that looked after the water supply and sewerage, while CCC managed the city's solid waste, he noted adding that environmental management was missing.

"The quality of water in many parts of Bangladesh has deteriorated, leaving a significant part of the population at potential threat of water pollution. The concentration of heavy metals is higher in water bodies close to the industrial zones. These heavy metals concentrations in both ground and surface water of Bangladesh often exceed the maximum permissible limit recommended by the BECR/WHO for drinking water," Professor Sudip Kumar mentioned.