Abstract
Ensuring safe drinking water is a major challenge in the southwest coastal region of Bangladesh due to the extreme intrusion of salinity in water resources. To address this issue, a range of drinking water supply systems (WSS) have been implemented in these coastal regions. These include deep tube wells (DTW), metered water (MW) as piped water supply, pond sand filters (PSF), reverse osmosis (RO), rainwater harvesting (RWH), shallow tube wells (STW), and surface water (SW) sources. The purpose of this study was to assess the sustainability of the existing WSS of the southwest coastal region of Bangladesh through the three pillars of ternary diagram approaches: social acceptability, economic viability, and technical suitability. To collect data for the assessment, a structured questionnaire survey was conducted at the local household level, along with focus group discussions (FGDs) and key informant interviews (KIIs). In addition, 160 water samples were collected from the different WSS to assess the water quality. DTW (22%), RO (20%), and MW (15%) were found to be the socially most acceptable WSS. RO, DTW, RWH, and MW ranked higher and were identified as the most sustainable WSS systems in the three-pillar approaches. Furthermore, a water quality index showed that all the WSS were classified as excellent water quality, except STW, which was categorized as very poor. RO and MW produce high-quality water and became prevalent in the study area, despite their higher costs. Overall results revealed that DTW, RO, and MW could be sustainable WSS options for the coastal area of Bangladesh.
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The datasets generated during and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.
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Acknowledgements
The authors acknowledged the Environmental Engineering Laboratory officials of Khulna University of Engineering & Technology for their cordial support during water testing. Special thanks to the Ministry of Science and Technology (MoST) of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh for providing the ‘National Science and Technology (NST) Fellowship’ in this study to carry out the research work during the Postgraduate Course ‘Master of Science in Sanitation’ from the Institute of Disaster Management, Khulna University of Engineering & Technology in cooperation with IHE-Delft the Institute for Water Education, Delft, The Netherlands under Global Sanitation Graduate School (GSGS).
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BM conducted the survey and experiments and wrote the initial draft of the manuscript. QHB was involved in conceptualization, supervision, formal analysis, and writing—manuscript. MS was involved in data analysis, data curation, revising, editing, and writing the manuscript.
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Mondal, B., Bari, Q.H. & Shafiquzzaman, M. A ternary diagram approach to evaluate the sustainability of existing water supply systems in southwest coastal Bangladesh. Sustain. Water Resour. Manag. 9, 143 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40899-023-00925-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40899-023-00925-z