Safe water adaptability for salinity, arsenic and drought risks in Southwestern Bangladesh

In 21^st century, availability of safe drinking water is the most challenging problem for the world. Some of the countries in the world have severe water scarcity, but this type of worst scenario is also observed in southwest part of Bangladesh. This is due to groundwater arsenic along with salinity intrusion and drought. To overcome the crisis of safe drinking water of this region, different international organizations, GO, NGOs, private sectors and community people are trying to cope with this. Most of them have paid their attention as single issue rather than combined. However, the problem of safe water scarcity arises through salinity, arsenic and drought that are intimately inter-linked with each other. Therefore, it is urgent to include all the issues by developing an integrated approach which will help to find a successful solution for accessing safe drinking water in the affected area. Hence, this study developed a holistic approach named "SIPE" to determine safe water adaptability index and applied it at 16 sub-districts (upazila) of Khulna and Satkhira districts in southwestern Bangladesh. It helps to measure existing level of different physico-chemical, socio-economic, environmental and institutional conditions of the targeted area and provides an overview of safe water adaptability index. Using SIPE approach, the results highlight that institutional dimension of 16 upazila has higher safe water adaptability index compare to physiochemical, socio-economic and environmental dimension. This study further tries to link this approach into policy level which facilitates to adapt and practice it through national level to local level in a sustainable way.