Rainwater harvesting is the natural solution for coastal water crises

Tension for having drinkable water for drinking, cooking, and other households coarse may be near to end in salinity-hit Khulna, Satkhira and Bagerhat coastal areas since the introduction and popularisation of rainwater retention and harvesting. Water is everywhere but the intrusion of saline water made the area unlivable and desert, putting the residents in a situation of ancient mariner “Water, water, everywhere; Not any drop to drink”. A total of 228 community-based rainwater harvesting plants and 41 pond-based plants have been installed at 39 unions of five upazilas in Khulna and Satkhira under the Gender-responsive Coastal Adaptation (GCA) project being implemented by UNDP Bangladesh in partnership with the Women and Children Affairs Ministry and the Department of Public Health Engineering (DPHE).
Using prepaid cards, a total of 200 households collect water from each plant set up in the community. Every household can collect 10 litres of water per day from the plant using their prepaid cards while they have to pay 25 paisa per litre of water. Community-based rainwater harvesting systems having water tanks with capacity of 2,000 litres to 50,000 litres were installed at different schools, mosques and temples in the five coastal upazilas. The project empowers climate-vulnerable coastal communities, especially women, as ‘change agents’ to plan, implement, and manage resilient livelihoods and drinking water solutions.
Access to reliable and safe drinking water enables the communities, especially women and girls in targeted households, to invest the resulting time and cost savings and health co-benefits in enhanced livelihoods and income-generating and educational opportunities. The project is expected to bring gender transformational changes in households and communities. The project has already ensued gender-responsive access to year-round safe and reliable climate-resilient drinking water solutions for 30,934 households, while it installed household-based rainwater harvesting systems, community-based rainwater harvesting systems, institution-based rainwater harvesting systems and pond-based ultra-filtration systems in the five project Upazilas of Khulna and Satkhira.
The revolutionary project will hopefully ease living in the coastal areas and ensure drinkable water at an affordable cost as access to water is a right, not mercy. Besides, the government should take a mega plan to stop salinity intrusion and undo the situation for a green revolution in the desert lands.