Inland water pollution in Bangladesh : the need for regulatory reform

Inland water pollution has been a major concern for the government of Bangladesh. Several policies and plans based on regulatory measures have been adopted by the government over time to address the issue. In spite of these efforts, no significant improvement in inland water pollution has been achieved. In addition, an updated, detailed and systematic analysis of this issue is lacking. This research aimed to nominate a new management authority to control inland water pollution effectively. The study revealed that the inland water sources of Bangladesh are polluted by a combination of wastewater both from municipal and industrial sources. Agriculture is the main non-point source of water pollution. Also, river water quality was found to be unacceptable (compared to the standards set by the Department of Environment of Bangladesh) for the parameters such as Dissolved Oxygen, Biochemical Oxygen Demand and Chemical Oxygen Demand during dry (low flow conditions) and wet (high flow conditions) seasons. The study identified that the existing regulatory approaches to control inland water pollution are not functioning effectively. The compliance and enforcement of these regulatory measures are not satisfactory, resulting in continuing pollution problems. The thesis uses academic research to articulate a comprehensive solution to these problems through better regulatory and institutional regime changes. The study evaluated existing national policy and legal and institutional framework to determine their inadequacies and failures, resulting in regulatory reform recommendations to improve the appropriate utilisation of inland water in Bangladesh. As part of this research, an effort has made to identify the fundamental framework of international watercourses law that could serve as a guideline to protect inland water from pollution. These frameworks conceived the main legal issues concerned with the use, development and protection of international freshwater resources, and will concentrate on regional arrangements to protect and control inland water pollution. The study explored the development of relevant international management principles for managing inland water and critically reviewed the long-established relationship between those principles and the international legal framework to preventing inland water pollution. The thesis assessed different principles of transboundary water management and the significance of soft law in developing domestic water related rules and policies. In addition to the evolving national legal regime, it examined bilateral regulatory initiatives that enable a deeper understanding of the strength and weaknesses of the existing legal regimes in Bangladesh. The research proposed strengthening of organisational capacity, in favour of a single authority that would be invested with total supremacy and responsibility for inland water pollution control in Bangladesh. Therefore, a recommendation has been made that an Inland Water Management Authority be established, to work under the supervision of the Ministry of Environment and Forests. This authority could be allocated with legislative power to take sole responsibility to manage and coordinate all inland water related activities. Moreover, the study noted the substantial positive contributions of stakeholders’ participation and commitments towards managing inland water pollution of the country. The study concluded that a sustainable pollution management system for the inland water is attainable by bringing together all the stakeholders concerned at a local level and by applying suitable pollution control measures along with the suggested set of policies. Thus, the proposed reform would contribute to the improvement of the current regime and to controlling the inland water pollution in Bangladesh effectively