Our research team at Imperial College London and Bangladesh Center for Advanced Studies (BCAS) has found expecting mothers in particular, becoming acutely susceptible to the diseases of hypertension and (pre)eclampsia from this salinity exposure. This suggests that climate change is not only breaching our coasts, but is approaching the very shores of motherhood in the womb.
Extensive scientific research reveals that the earth's freshwater is among the first and most depleted resources impacted by climate change. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports that groundwater, crop soils and many rivers are likely to become increasingly saline from higher tidal waves and storm surges as a result of climate change effects (IPCC 2007). Salinity along the Bangladesh coast has already encroached over 100km inland into domestic ponds, groundwater supplies and agricultural land, through the various estuaries and water inlets intertwined with major rivers.
Bangladesh's salinity intrusion threatens greater future incursion, for numerous reasons contentiously debated by scientists. These include reduced freshwater flows into the Padma River caused by the Farakka Barrage; climate change induced decreases of dry season rainfall, stronger and more frequent cyclones and sea-level rise; and intensified saltwater shrimp farming.
As we all know, coastal populations rely heavily on tubewells, rivers and ponds for their drinking water and cooking. Although the Food and Agriculture Organisation's (FAO) allowable water salinity level for human consumption is less than ½ gram per kilogram of water (ppt), river salinity in some coastal districts reaches as high as 4 grams in the rainy season and an alarming 13 grams per kilogram in the dry season (Center for Environmental and Geographic Information Services 2000). Seawater, which is extremely harmful for humans , contains 35 grams per kilogram of water. Approximately 20 million of the 37 million people living on these coasts (over 57%) are adversely affected by such salinity in their drinking water. Read the full report here.
Source: by Aneire E. Khan and Mikhail I. Islam, The Daily Star.
