Groundwater use for irrigation in Bangladesh: The prospects and some emerging issues

Abstract

Groundwater represents a vitally important resource for Bangladesh for its irrigation development. Great efforts are now underway to increase irrigated acreage by employing a mix of three major types of tubewell system—deep, shallow, and hand tubewells. This paper attempts to analyse the past trends of development of groundwater irrigation as well as a number of relevant policy issues, such as the gap between the potential and actual use of the capacity of the different tubewell systems, the rate of groundwater withdrawal that can be sustained on a long-term basis, the recently adopted ‘privatization’ policy of the government, and the choice of scale in the promotion of the different types of tubewell systems. Finally, a number of problem areas are identified, and some immediate actions required to deal with the problems are indicated.