Bangladesh (Commonwealth Union)_According to a research, the 16 million smallholder farmers in Bangladesh who pump up groundwater have created enormous subterranean reservoirs with storage capacities comparable to those of the largest dams in the world. The study, which was published in Science, claimed that groundwater-fed irrigation had converted a large portion of Bangladesh’s rain-watered, single-crop floodplains into highly productive double-cropping and, in some locations, triple-cropping lands, making the nation the fourth highest producer of rice in the world.
According to the researchers, the sustainable irrigation method might be used to other regions suffering from climate change, which is causing an increase in extreme weather occurrences globally. In Bangladesh, the rainy season lasts from May to October, with the remaining months of the year being categorized as the dry season.
The study found that groundwater consumption increased significantly when the nation experienced droughts between 1992 and 1994. According to Mohammad Shamsudduha, corresponding author of the study associated with University College, London, “The Bengal Water Machine is a nature-based solution, requiring a relatively minimal intervention — i.e. shallow irrigation wells that are less than 100 meters below ground level relative to dams, to increase seasonal capture of freshwater that would otherwise drain to the Bay of Bengal.”
The researchers described how groundwater levels are decreased by pumping up water during the dry season and are then replenished by leaching from ponds, rivers, and lakes during the monsoon season. The study’s authors refer to this process as ‘The Bengal Water Machine’ in which the collection of surface water causes a rise in groundwater levels and reduces flooding. The Mekong delta in Vietnam and the Huang He river delta in China, both of which are vulnerable to the impacts of climate change, are two areas where the researchers believe that a larger replication of the study’s findings may be feasible. According to them, the Bengal Water Machine can improve world food security and resilience to climate extremes brought on by global warming.
