Groundwater arsenic contamination in Bangladesh-21 Years of research

Abstract

Department of Public Health Engineering (DPHE), Bangladesh first identified their groundwater arsenic contamination in 1993. But before the international arsenic conference in Dhaka in February 1998, the problem was not widely accepted. Even in the international arsenic conference in West-Bengal, India in February, 1995, representatives of international agencies in Bangladesh and Bangladesh government attended the conference but they denied the groundwater arsenic contamination in Bangladesh. School of Environmental Studies (SOES), Jadavpur University, Kolkata, India first identified arsenic patient in Bangladesh in 1992 and informed WHO, UNICEF of Bangladesh and Govt. of Bangladesh from April 1994 to August 1995. British Geological Survey (BGS) dug hand tube-wells in Bangladesh in 1980s and early 1990s but they did not test the water for arsenic. Again BGS came back to Bangladesh in 1992 to assess the quality of the water of the tube-wells they installed but they still did not test for arsenic when groundwater arsenic contamination and its health effects in West Bengal in Bengal delta was already published in WHO Bulletin in 1988. From December 1996, SOES in collaboration with Dhaka Community Hospital (DCH), Bangladesh started analyzing hand tube-wells for arsenic from all 64 districts in four geomorphologic regions of Bangladesh. So far over 54,000 tube-well water samples had been analyzed by flow injection hydride generation atomic absorption spectrometry (FI-HG-AAS). From SOES water analysis data at present we could assess status of arsenic groundwater contamination in four geo-morphological regions of Bangladesh and location of possible arsenic safe groundwater. SOES and DCH also made some preliminary work with their medical team to identify patients suffering from arsenic related diseases. SOES further analyzed few thousands biological samples (hair, nail, urine and skin scales) and foodstuffs for arsenic to know arsenic body burden and people sub-clinically affected. SOES and DCH made a few follow-up studies in some districts to know their overall situations after 9 to 18 years of their first exposure. The overall conclusion from these follow-up studies is (a) villagers are now more aware about the danger of drinking arsenic contaminated water (b) villagers are currently drinking less arsenic contaminated water (c) many villagers in affected village died of cancer (d) arsenic contaminated water is in use for agricultural irrigation and arsenic exposure from food chain could be future danger. Since at present more information is coming about health effects from low arsenic exposure, Bangladesh Government should immediately focus on their huge surface water management and reduce their permissible limit of arsenic in drinking water.

Keywords: Arsenic; Biological samples; Groundwater; Health effects; Managing risk.