Water and Health : Impact of Climate Change in Bangladesh

The government of Bangladesh’s (GoB) Delta Plan 2100 (BDP 2100) disaggregates Bangladesh’s 64 districts into six ecological zones based on hydrological characteristics and climate risks and deems 58 districts to be “extremely vulnerable” to the effects of climate change. The heterogeneity in the water crisis across the different hotspots presents unique health challenges. This paper summarizes the effects of altered quantity and quality of water on human health for each of the ecological zones and provides recommendations based on the findings. Climate change continues to deteriorate the quality and quantity of water in Bangladesh and is one of the leading causes of morbidity and death. The consequences are particularly pronounced for pregnant women and children. There are substantial regional variations in the effects on health, driven by the country’s topological attributes, such as groundwater depletion in the Barind and drought-prone areas and salinity in drinking water in the coastal regions. To address these challenges, it is imperative for agencies such as the Institute of Epidemiology, Disease Control and Research (IEDCR) and the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW) to build research capacity and upscale comprehensive disease surveillance systems to monitor trends in existing and emerging communicable and noncommunicable diseases, and to rigorously evaluate the efficacy of disease prevention and control programs. A set of zone-specific health policies and actions needs to be formulated under the aegis of the MoHFW in collaboration with relevant GoB stakeholders such as the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics, academics, practitioners, and policy makers, underpinned by credible evidence.