Jennifer Thompson's List: Atmosphere and change

• The availability of safe drinking water, particularly in Bangladesh's hard to reach areas, is expected to worsen as the country experiences the effects of climate change, experts say.
• 28 million Bangladeshis, or just over 20% of the population, are living in harsh conditions in the "hard-to-reach areas" that make up a quarter of the country's landmass.
• As a result of climate change, salinity in Bangladesh's coastal areas has increased [a great deal], causing a lack of sweet water. Women in coastal and haor areas need to go miles to collect a pitcher of safe drinking water."
• Worsening weather extremes that bring floods, storm surges and cyclones are contributing to increases in water salinity and other problems accessing clean water
• close to the Bay of Bengal, the amount of arsenic in the groundwater is also very high. We need to dig much deeper to get arsenic-free water."
• surface water sources have already dried up in many parts of the country, which will have a heavy impact on access to drinking water, sanitation and ecosystems
• In the drought-prone Barind Tract area in north Bangladesh, you have to dig more than 350 metres to get safe drinking water,"

• Dhaka's underground aquifers are usually recharged with water that percolates underground in nearby districts, but the levels of underground fresh water in those districts have also dropped, allowing seawater to start seeping into the aquifers. If this continues, experts say, Dhaka's drinking water could become increasingly undrinkable.
• rainfall across Bangladesh has halved and become more unpredictable over the past five years. That has led to problems including growing salinity in groundwater.

• "Salinity in the water of coastal areas has now reached over 20 parts per thousand, but the human body can only tolerate five parts per thousand," he said.

• Filtration and desalination plants are expensive, but experts say they offer the only chance to avert a looming crisis. Nishat suggests installing sand filter systems, in which hand pumps are used to suck water from artificial ponds through a filter that makes the water potable.
• Our lives are under severe threat. Getting safe drinking water has become a big challenge."

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