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Salinity and Water-Related Disease Risk in Coastal Bangladesh

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Abstract

An increase in surface and ground-water salinity due to climate change is reported to have become a great threat to the health of coastal inhabitants in Bangladesh. However, little is known about how much such salinity affects the risk of water-related diseases and how such risk can be mitigated in the field. This research examines the association between water-related diseases and coastal salinity along with sociodemographic and anthropometric factors. We conduct questionnaire surveys with 527 households: 273 subjects from the non-salinity and 254 subjects from the salinity rural coastal areas of Bangladesh. The logistic regression analysis demonstrates that the probability of suffering from water-borne, water-washed and water-related diseases are 8%, 14% and 11% higher in the salinity areas than in the non-salinity areas, respectively. However, it is also identified that people who consume rainwater as a drinking source even in the salinity areas have less chances and people who belong to “underweight body mass index” have more chances of being affected by water-related diseases. Overall, the results suggest that the long-term reservation of rainwater and addressing community-based food security & nutrition programs shall be effective countermeasures to reduce the risk of health problems in the coastal population and to sustain their lives even under the threat of land salinity.

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Abbreviations

BDT:

Bangladesh taka

BMI:

Body mass index

EC:

Electrical conductivity

dS/m:

DeciSiemens per metre

ppm:

Parts per million

SDGs:

Sustainable development goals

SRDI:

Soil Resources Development Institute

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Acknowledgements

We would like to thank the anonymous referees, Makoto Kakinaka, Hiroaki Miyamoto, Kenta Tanaka, Yoshinori Nakagawa, Yuki Yanai, Raja Timilsina, Mostafa Shahen and Pankaj Koirala for their helpful comments, advice and supports. The authors specially thank Moinul Islam for his technical support on preparing the picture files for maps. We are also grateful to the financial support from the Japanese Society of the Promotion of the Science as the Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research B (19H01485) and Kochi University of Technology.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Economics and Management, Kochi University of Technology, Kochi, Japan

    Khatun Mst Asma & Koji Kotani

  2. Department of Agricultural and Applied Statistics, Bangladesh Agricultural University, Mymensingh, Bangladesh

    Khatun Mst Asma

  3. Research Institute for Future Design, Kochi University of Technology, Kochi, Japan

    Koji Kotani

  4. Urban Institute, Kyusyu University, Fukuoka, Japan

    Koji Kotani

  5. College of Business, Rikkyo University, Tokyo, Japan

    Koji Kotani

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  1. Khatun Mst Asma
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Correspondence to Koji Kotani.

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Asma, K.M., Kotani, K. Salinity and Water-Related Disease Risk in Coastal Bangladesh. EcoHealth 18, 61–75 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10393-021-01517-z

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