Abstract
In most of rural Bangladesh, the proliferation of tubewells that pump up groundwater has increased people’s access to drinking water over the last couple of decades. Most of the tubewells found in households, markets, schools, mosques, and other locations are privately owned, although the government has also installed some public tubewells. The government and development agencies heavily promoted these devices as ‘safe’ water sources compared to surface water (e.g., ponds and rivers), which is often chemically and pathogenically contaminated (and frequently led to high morbidity and mortality rates from water-borne diseases). However, the tubewell water that was deemed a public health success story only a few years ago is now poisoning millions of people, as naturally occurring, tasteless, odourless, colourless, carcinogenic arsenic is showing up in drinking water drawn from these wells.
Original language | English (US) |
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Title of host publication | Water, Cultural Diversity, and Global Environmental Change |
Subtitle of host publication | Emerging Trends, Sustainable Futures? |
Publisher | Springer Netherlands |
Pages | 237-252 |
Number of pages | 16 |
ISBN (Electronic) | 9789400717749 |
ISBN (Print) | 9789400717732 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Jan 1 2012 |
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- General Agricultural and Biological Sciences
- General Environmental Science