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Seawater intrusion caused by unmanaged groundwater uses in a coastal tourist area, Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh

Environmental Earth Sciences volume 77, Article number: 75 (2018) Cite this article

Abstract

The Cox’s Bazar region at the southeastern coast of Bangladesh has been gradually changed from a rural settlement into a densely populated urban area, caused by the rapid growth of tourism. Water demand is mainly covered by groundwater, and the hotels and resorts are typically operating their own groundwater wells without metering and regulations. In this study, the temporal and spatial variations in groundwater quality and hydraulic heads in the Cox’s Bazar area were evaluated over a period of 2 and 4 years respectively, to analyze the effects of the groundwater extractions on the status of the groundwater resources. Due to the pronounced seasonality of rainfall, the aquifer system was found to be highly dynamic even without human interference and seawater intrusion into the aquifers from the Bay of Bengal as well as from the Bakkhali river in the north was detected. The groundwater abstraction caused groundwater levels in some touristic centers to be already permanently below sea level, and a trend to a further lowering of hydraulic heads was observed. This coincides with an overall trend of increasing electrical conductivities in the groundwater. For a sound and sustainable development of the Cox’s Bazar region, water management strategies and a regulatory framework have to be developed that consider the specific conditions in such a coastal zone.

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Acknowledgements

We thank the Bangladesh Meteorological Department for providing climate data and Bangladesh Geological Survey and Department of Public Health Engineering (DPHE) for the geological information. The first author thanks Studienstiftung des Deutschen Volkes for financial support. This study was also supported by the German Ministry for Education and Research (BMBF) under Grant 01DP14024. Finally but not the least, the first author would like to thank reviewers for their helpful comments and suggestions that improved this manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Applied Geosciences, Technical University of Darmstadt, 64287, Darmstadt, Germany

    Suraiya Fatema, Andres Marandi & Christoph Schüth

  2. Bangladesh Water Development Board, Dhaka, 1205, Bangladesh

    Anwar Zahid

  3. Department of Geology, University of Dhaka, Dhaka, 1000, Bangladesh

    Muhammad Qumrul Hassan

  4. Institute of Water and Flood Management, Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology, Dhaka, 1000, Bangladesh

    Mohammed Abed Hossain

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  1. Suraiya Fatema
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  2. Andres Marandi
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  3. Anwar Zahid
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  4. Muhammad Qumrul Hassan
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  5. Mohammed Abed Hossain
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  6. Christoph Schüth
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Correspondence to Suraiya Fatema.

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Fatema, S., Marandi, A., Zahid, A. et al. Seawater intrusion caused by unmanaged groundwater uses in a coastal tourist area, Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh. Environ Earth Sci 77, 75 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12665-018-7260-6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12665-018-7260-6

Keywords

  • Seawater intrusion
  • Hydrochemistry
  • Coastal aquifer
  • Tourism
  • Bangladesh