What is it about?
Transboundary rivers are considered as a vital water resource supplier for the South Asian region. Teesta is a Himalayan sourced river basin shared between India and Bangladesh and supporting livelihood opportunities for closely 30 million people. Both nation have constructed grand irrigation projects in Teesta basin to withdraw the water resources with a view to foster the food production and socio-economic development for the riparian people. It appears that, due to upstream intervention such as barrage, dam and hydro power projects downstream region of Bangladesh often received least water discharge in its parts. The study assesses the impact of upstream water withdrawal on downstream nation and estimate the irrigation failure and production loss for the water dependent downstream Teesta river basin. The study founds, due to the absence of Teesta water sharing treaty Bangladesh is not receiving equal water share and loosing very large scale agricultural production each year. It is found that, total rice production missed in the north-western region since 2006–07 is more than the country's total rice import during 2008/09–2013/14 fiscal years and nearly one quarter of the total boro production in the 2012/13 fiscal year. Consequently, the North-western region of Bangladesh is facing food insecurity, livelihood impediment and countless socio-economic turmoil.
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Why is it important?
This study will help to reform transboundary policies, restructure water governance and encourage conflict resolution between the riparian nations. It expected that, the study findings with strengthen the voice of water deprived downstream nation against the water inequality and upstream intervention and encourage the effective water dialogue to lessen the cost of water conflict in the transboundary river basins.
Perspectives
The close neighbor Bangladesh and India are sharing nearly 50 transboundary rivers. Due to lack of water co-operation and treaty Bangladesh receives unequal water resources from its major transboundary rivers due to upstream intervention. This study examine the case of Teesta river and find out the cost of water inequality for downstream Bangladesh, which will educate the people about the loss of transboundary conflict and encourage the responsible Govt. to go for water dispute resolution for ensuring larger socio-economic gain in the river basin regions.
Mr Md. Arfanuzzaman
Bangladesh Centre for Advanced Studies
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Assessing the regional food insecurity in Bangladesh due to irrigation water shortage in the Teesta catchment area, Water Policy, March 2015, IWA Publishing,
DOI: 10.2166/wp.2015.072.
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