Gender Based Water Governance to Cope with Salinity Intrusion: A Study on Coastal Area in Bangladesh

Abstract

The southwest part of the coastal area in Bangladesh is to be identified as environmental handicap by climate change factors. It is exacerbating existing water insecurity, with significant gender consequences. Because of climate change the sea-level is intensifying that results in high salinity intrusion and enhancing the vulnerability of coastal belt people especially women. Changes in water availability, access, scarcity and security play critical roles in shaping the ways that individuals, communities and country are tackling existing and predicted climate change. Increase of vulnerabilities, marginalization, and sufferings of saline prone people affect the social strata if the water governance system is not well- functionalized. Intersectionalities of social difference, especially along gender and class lines, differentiate the ways in which impacts of water scarcity due to high salinity intrusion. For example: in Bangladesh women are the ―prime user‖ of water and as the prime user they are responsible for maintaining basic household hygiene and keeping themselves and their children clean without contaminating the stored water, they need for drinking and cooking. However, during the decision-making process pertaining to water governance their voice is not heard and they hardly participate in any kind of public meeting at rural level. In a report of UN-Water, 2005 it was mentioned, in Coastal area women and girls often spend up to 6 hours every day fetching water. To cope with this salinity intrusion women, need to give extra time to manage their productive, reproductive and community role in terms of better water governance where men involvement is also a crucial thing to make the community sustainable. The objectives of this study are to identify the challenges in gender based water governance to cope with salinity intrusion, to define the roles of different stakeholders in water governance system to deal with salinity focusing on gender, and to find out the possible remedies to strengthen a gender based water governance system to make the community more resilient and sustainable. Here, Borokupat village under, Atulia Union at Shyamnagar Upazilla in Satkhira Zilla has been chosen as the study village. A household survey was carried in the presence of both women and men from five types of drinking water source user namely protected pond, Pond Sand Filter, rainwater harvesting, tube-well and supply water. In this study gender analysis played a critical role to identify the water-related productive and reproductive tasks, as climate change has exacerbated both ecological degradation for example: water shortages and water-related natural hazards including floods, cyclones, thereby transforming gender and water geographies. Following gendered implications of water related vulnerabilities due to salinity is particularly important as patriarchal norms, inequities, and inequalities often place women and men in differentiated positions in their abilities to cope with intense changes in socio-ecological relations and changing waterscapes. This chapter explores the nexus of gender and water to demonstrate how different groups of people are vulnerable due to salinity that leads water scarcity in coastal area of Bangladesh as well as to determine the impact of gender balance water governance system to bolster the process of developing a resilient community.