From the Ground Up: How Khulna City Shifted its Water Supply System from Salinated, Diminishing Groundwater to Surface Water

FROM THE GROUND UP

HOW KHULNA CITY SHIFTED ITS WATER SUPPLY SYSTEM FROM SALINATED, DIMINISHING GROUNDWATER TO SURFACE WATER

JULY 2022

Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 IGO license (CC BY 3.0 IGO)

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Some rights reserved. Published in 2022.

ISBN 978-92-9269-542-2 (print); 978-92-9269-543-9 (electronic); 978-92-9269-544-6 (ebook)

Publication Stock No. TCS220219-2

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.22617/TCS220219-2

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Notes:

In this publication, $ refers to United States dollars and Tk refers to Bangladesh taka.

All photographs by Mohammad Rakibul Hasan, unless otherwise credited.

On the cover: As a result of the ADB-supported Khulna Water Supply Project, Kajol Begum, 29, a resident of a low-income community of Khulna City, received her first metered water connection.

CONTENTS

TABLES, FIGURES, BOXES, MAPS, AND IMPACT STORIES

FOREWORD

by the Asian Development Bank

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) proudly shares its knowledge and experience of tackling a significant challenge facing many developing member countries: groundwater depletion and salinity intrusion.

According to ADB’s Asia Water Development Outlook 2020, salinity intrusion increased by more than one-third in the region’s 50 major rivers between 1990 and 2010. South Asia scores the lowest in the outlook’s indices for environmental water security, which includes groundwater assessments. The rapid depletion of aquifers can lead to inequities in water access, land subsidence, and an increase in saltwater intrusion in coastal areas. We see this in Bangladesh and South Asia, but also elsewhere throughout Asia and the Pacific.

Water pollution and excessive groundwater abstraction are widening the supply–demand gaps. Climate change and worsening seasonal storms and droughts are also forcing municipalities and water supply operators to drastically alter their approaches to water source development and service delivery.

Khulna City is a prime case study for understanding the challenges that many municipalities and water service providers confront: increasing demand, diminishing groundwater, and widespread salinity intrusion. Being a coastal city, Khulna is predisposed to high saline levels, but overextraction of groundwater and rising sea levels exacerbate this problem. The Khulna Water Supply Project, supported by ADB and the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), sought to understand how these challenges can be met through comprehensive studies to inform design, institutional development, and major overhauls of water supply infrastructure and service delivery.

The Khulna Water Supply and Sewerage Authority (KWASA) has valuable experience for other municipal and water utility leaders who are seriously considering the transition to conjunctive use. It is a practical presentation of how options were formulated and decisions were made for the design of a