ASSESSMENT OF RAINWATER HARVESTING IN COASTAL BANGLADESH: A COMPARATIVE STUDY BETWEEN SOUTHWEST AND CENTRAL COAST OF BANGLADESH

Md. Moynul Ahsan
Nimet Özbek
S. M Shah Mahmood

Abstract
Despite being a tremendous development potential area, the people of coastal belt usually lead their life fighting against cyclone, salinity intrusion, tidal surge, flood and so on. There are rivers, pond and other water sources but people have no safe source of drinking water due to intrusion of saline water in both surface and groundwater, and they very commonly face scarcity of safe water. Climate change has further worsened the situation. People adapted and adopted various technologies to cope with the devastated situation. Rainwater harvesting system is one of such technologies. The main aim of this paper is to assess comparatively on Rainwater Harvesting (RWH) system in southwest and central coast of Bangladesh. Two household based rainwater harvesting systems have been considered for assessment in this study. One is located in Rampal Upazila in Bagerhat district under South West Coast and another is Monpura Upazila in Bhola district under Central Coast of Bangladesh. To assess rainwater harvesting system as context specific, user friendly and climate resilient technology a checklist has been prepared by focusing the indicators i.e: hydrological feasibility, local reparability and affordability, user friendliness, gender friendliness, local acceptability, durability and sustainability and functionability under climatic disaster and operation, maintenance and management. These indicators highlights that south west coastal people are habituated and adapted with careful operation and maintenance and management of the technology. On the other hand, central coastal people have adopted this technology but still people are not habituated and accepted and the operation, maintenance and management system is weak. Through action research this study has tried to find out how rainwater harvesting system can be an appropriate and context specific climate resilient technology in southwest and central coast of Bangladesh.

Key words: Rainwater Harvesting (RWH), climate change, south west coast, central coast, sustainable technology