Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
6.4.1 Bangladesh
As a developing country in South Asia, Bangladesh suffers high morbidity that
comes from waterborne diseases such as diarrhea and dysentery due to poor san-
itation and contaminated water. Furthermore, the drinking water in Bangladesh is
principally contaminated by arsenic in the tube wells to levels above the Bangla-
desh standard of 50
five times higher than the WHO Guideline Value
(Arsenic Policy Support Unit 2006 ). Based on the third edition of the WHO
Guidelines for Drinking Water Quality, Bangladesh began establishing and
implementing Water Safety Plans (WSPs) for both rural and urban water supplies in
2004 (Arsenic Policy Support Unit 2006 ).
According to the WHO Guidelines, the health-based targets refer to a series of
safety requirements and public health needs, which can be identi
μ
g/l, which is
ed by four types:
(a) health outcome (i.e. the reductions in risk of disease), (b) water quality (i.e. the
concentrations of substances in water are considered to be of no risk to public
health), (c) performance (i.e. the reductions in the concentrations of microbes in
water through treatment processes), and (d) speci
ed technology (i.e. the technol-
ogy can meet the safety requirements) (Arsenic Policy Support Unit 2006 ). The
Guidelines applied to Bangladesh contain three major elements, which are the
following:
1. Water Safety Plans
In order to apply primary water supply technologies to the community in rural
areas,
WSPs were established through a consultative process promoted by
the Arsenic Policy Support Unit (APSU) of Bangladesh (Arsenic Policy Support
Unit 2006 ). With the development of the
Model
WSP, hazardous event analysis
was conducted to (a) identify the threats, (b) assess the risks, and (c) determine the
priorities for action. Subsequently, a series of Water Safety Plans was prepared for
veri
Model
cation (i.e. Water Safety Plans for dug wells, pond sand
filters, rainwater
harvesting, and tube wells) (Arsenic Policy Support Unit 2006 ).
It is important to test the practical application of the
WSPs and so a
number of pilot projects were created by APSU. A diverse range of organizations
carried out the pilots. These organizations were the NGO Forum for Drinking Water
Supply and Sanitation; the Environment and Population Research Centre; and the
Dhaka Community Hospital. The pilots were carried out in
Model
five districts of Ban-
gladesh, namely Barisal, Dhaka, Chittagong, Rajshahi, and Sylhet (Arsenic Policy
Support Unit 2006 ).
The aims of the pilot projects were (a) to observe whether all risks are identi
ed,
(b) to measure the performance of implementation of the
WSPs for dif-
ferent local conditions, and (c) to record the experiences and lessons obtained from
the pilots. The overall performance of the pilot projects was positive and successful
and the key
model
findings can be summarized as follows (Arsenic Policy Support Unit
2006 ):
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