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growth will continue to be felt most severely in the urban sector, where the growth rate over the past two decades
has been between 5 and 6% per annum, and is likely to be similar for many years to come. Currently, the urban
population accounts for about 20% of the total population, and the proportion is expected to rise to 53% by 2025
(Rasheed, 2000).
Bangladesh is also overburdened with an extremely high rate of poverty. According to the Human Development
Report released by UNDP in 2003, the GDP per capita was 1,610 PPP $US, the Human Development Index Rank was
139, the adult literacy rate (age 15 and above) was 40.6%, the population living below $US 1 a day was 36.0%, the infant
mortality rate was 51 per every 1000 live births, the rates of mortality for children aged under 5 was 77 per every
1000 live births, and children under the age of 5 who were underweight for their age group was 48% (UNDP, 2003).
Bangladesh, a disaster prone country, is experiencing one of the highest rates of unplanned urbanization. Except
for the hilly regions in the northeast and southeast parts, the whole country consists of low and flat land formed
mainly by the Ganges, Brahmaputra and Meghna river systems. It has three broad types of landscapes: floodplains
(80%), terraces (8%), and hills (12%). Floods are a recurrent phenomenon. Nearly 20% of the area is inundated, even
in a year of normal precipitation. The 1988 and 1998 floods affected about 60% of the land area and about half the
population was directly affected. The economic development of the country depends upon a host of factors, one of
which is high and stable level of agricultural production. Most of the people earn a living from agriculture related
activities. However, agricultural growth, critically depends upon weather conditions. Bangladesh is likely to be one
of the worst climate change/variability affected countries of the world (Huq et al., 1999).
The WHO-UNICEF Assessment Report in 2004 showed that the percentage of people with access to improved
drinking water in Bangladesh was 71% in 1990, and later rose to 75% in 2002 (WHO/UNICEF, 2004). The relatively
low figures regarding the access of improved drinking water to the people of Bangladesh is due to arsenic contamination
of groundwater. Massive arsenic contamination of groundwater has been publicly discussed and indicated
since 1997. According to the British Geological Survey and Government of Bangladesh sampled survey conducted
in 1998 and reported in early 1999, 35 million people were believed to be exposed to an arsenic concentration in
drinking water exceeding 0.05 mg/l, and 57 million people were exposed to a concentration exceeding 0.01 mg/l
(DPHE and DFID, 2000) 2 . This contamination of groundwater (drinking water) is one of the current most demanding
and complex challenges of the country. However, Dhaka city, the town where the case study was conducted, is not
affected by arsenic contamination and thus this issue is not included in this study.
Dhaka is the capital city. It experienced a growth of 314% during 1974-1991 (Rasheed, 2000). According to a 1995 survey
in Dhaka, the absolute poverty line and the hard-core poverty line of Dhaka are 54.9% and 31.9%, respectively.
In addition, with an estimated 9 million people living in an area of 1,339 km 2 in metropolitan Dhaka (Islam et al.,
1997), the population density is calculated to be roughly 6720 persons per km 2 . According to the same survey, only
about 3.2% own land, and 89% of households, whose average size is 4.2 persons per household, live in a single room.
Nearly 30-40% of the population of Dhaka lives in slums. Slums are informal houses, built with very poor structural
quality, to supply low-cost dwellings to the poor in densely populated areas. The slum houses in Dhaka usually have
minimum or no sanitation or utility services and have extremely poor environmental conditions (Islam et al., 1997).
The poor of Dhaka city in general have little access to sanitation, street lighting, garbage disposal, drainage and other
services. Water supply and sanitation situations in Dhaka are presented in Table 1.1. It shows that in 2000, 100%
of both the slum and non-slum dwellers drank tap/tube well/dug well water, but there was no absolute certainty
that this water was considered safe.
As presented in Table 1.1, majority of the poor people of Dhaka in 2000 did not have access to improved sanitation
facilities such as water seal toilets, flush toilets and pit latrines. At that time, they mainly had access to hanging
latrines, which is a facility in where defecation takes place where the excreta goes directly into water bodies or
ditches without any treatment. Pit latrines include holes lined by concrete rings and a slab on the top of the rings.
The water seal or flush toilets may have been connected to one of three treatment options; these options included
the Dhaka sewerage system, septic tanks and biogas facilities. However, these types of connections are only accessible
to an extremely minute number of the slum population.
Table 1.1: Water supply and sanitation situations in Dhaka.
Category Drinking water sources Sanitation facilities
Tap/Tube well/Dug well Water seal/ Pit latrines Hanging latrine/
Flush toilet
Open defecation
% % % %
Dhaka slums 100 1.6 20.3 78.1
Dhaka non-slums 100 61.5 8 .7 29.8
Source: UNICEF, 2000
2 WHO guideline value for arsenic in drinking water is 0.01 mg/l.
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