Half of Bangladeshi drinking water is polluted with arsenic, reason will blow your mind

A recent study has brought to light a concerning issue in Bangladesh, where nearly half of the country’s water supply is contaminated with dangerously high levels of arsenic. The Independent reports that a team of scientists discovered that 49% of the water, which the majority of the population relies on, contains unsafe limits of this carcinogenic contaminant.

The researchers wrote in their paper published in the journal PLOS One that as change progresses, sea levels will continue to rise, and the area and duration of these annual floods will increase.

Roughly 97 per cent of Bangladesh's population drinking well water could be affected by this. Around 49 per cent of the drinking well water in the area has arsenic concentrations exceeding the 10 micrograms per litre limit set by the World Health Organization. The increasing exposure to arsenic in the country is already driving up the rates of death and disease from skin, bladder, liver, and lung cancers and vascular disease.

Nearly 49% of the population in the country consumes drinking water from wells that contain arsenic levels surpassing the safe limits. Furthermore, a recent study shows that the ongoing climate crisis is worsening this issue, indicating an impending public health crisis in Bangladesh.

Why has arsenic poisoned Bangladesh's water?

Several countries, including Bangladesh, Argentina, Cambodia, Chile, China, India, Mexico, Pakistan, the US, and Vietnam, naturally have high concentrations of the toxic contaminant arsenic in their groundwater. In the 1970s, the struggle with arsenic contamination in Bangladesh began when they made efforts to shift the population away from drinking polluted surface water, a known source of waterborne diseases.

In response, the government, UN aid agencies, and NGOs installed around 10 million drinking water wells across the country. This initiative successfully reduced the high child mortality rate. However, by the 1990s, it was evident that the water extracted from sedimentary rocks contained high levels of inorganic arsenic. Today, approximately 97% of Bangladesh’s population of 165 million continues to consume well water.

A 2002 study by a team of scientists found that nearly half of Bangladesh’s area has drinking well water with arsenic concentrations exceeding the World Health Organization’s guideline of 10 micrograms per litre (μg/L). Chronic arsenic poisoning can lead to skin lesions on the palms and feet.

Internal accumulation of arsenic in the organs can cause cancer, link to cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and negatively impact cognitive development in those exposed from a young age.

Arsenic increases with conductance, pH

The study estimates that the levels of dissolved oxygen in the water range from 0.16 to 12.70 milligrams per litre (mg/L). The research indicates a correlation between low concentrations of dissolved oxygen and high concentrations of arsenic.

The study also suggests that rising sea levels could lead to an increase in the salt concentration in the aquifer, which could in turn increase the release of arsenic from sediments into the drinking well water.

The researchers found that as the specific conductance of the water increases, so does the concentration of arsenic. We found that the specific conductance of the drinking well water ranged from 40 to 5,360 microsiemens per centimeter (μS/cm).

The study notes that the specific conductance of Bangladesh’s drinking well water is higher in the south, near the Bay of Bengal, and lower in the north, near the Himalayan mountains. This pattern aligns with the occurrence of floods and storm surges, which cause saltwater with relatively higher specific conductance to intrude from the south to the north.

People expect these factors to make safe drinking water a scarcer resource for the 165 million Bangladeshis living in low-lying areas. The researchers called for the faster development of potential solutions, including water purification technologies and infrastructure to prevent groundwater contamination.

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