Water resources of Bangladesh

In Bangladesh, there are three sources of water, like ground water, surface water and rain water. We use our ground water mainly for drinking and household purpose by using deep and shallow tube well. We don’t have any system to preserve the rain water for drinking and household purpose but ultimately it goes down to the ground & surface and mixed with the ground water as well as surface water. As a source of surface water we have four major river ( Padma, Meghna, Jamuna and Bramaputra) including thousands of their branch and sub-brunch (like fishing net in manner), and many thousands of small, medium and large size ponds. We use surface water mainly for agriculture purpose but it also used for drinking water and household purpose. We got various types of small, medium and big size fishes from those rivers, their branches, sub-branches and ponds to meet around 90% demand of human protein. Sometimes we use the river for production of water electricity. We have 80% village and 20% urban areas and village peoples are dependent on water transport for their communication.
About two thirds of the cultivable land at Bangladesh is prone to flood damage every years. Thus flood control and drainage improvement are crucial for the national economy in order to reduce or prevent damage to crops and infrastructure. Since agriculture and water resources arc linked, increasing food grain production requires water management through flood control, drainage and irrigation. The dual problem of shortage of water during the dry season and its abundance in rainy season are critical in the development and management of water resources in Bangladesh. Being the lower riparian of the three major rivers of the world-the Ganges, the Brahmaputra and the Meghna-Bangladesh could not undertake meanin -gful water development in the past in order to properly harness their flows for the benefit of the people.

Water is central to the way of life in Bangladesh and the single-most important resource for the well-being of its people. It sustains an extremely fragile natural environment and provides livelihood for millions of people. So, we need a effective and practical oriented policy to implement it in an efficient way, otherwise people will be deprive from the well being of the water sources and ultimately it will reflect negatively on the development of the country.