Environmental Problems and Water Resource Management in the
Environmental problems account for many of
the hindrances faced by Bangladesh in her
efforts towards economic development. Among
these problems, flood, cyclone etc. are the
natural and deforestation, increasing
salinity in river water, increase in the amount of arsenic
in tube well water, rise in the level of
river beds, flash floods and droughts are problems
caused by human activities. This paper
based on a recent survey, reflects on the degradation
of environmental condition of the people
living in the Teesta River basin in Bangladesh as a
result of building and operating a barrage
named Gazoldoba at the upstream of the Teesta
River in the Indian territory, causing
flash floods, droughts and river erosion in Bangladesh.
The Bangladesh authorities had built a
barrage (at Dalia in 1979; inaugurated by Ziaur
Rahman, former President of Bangladesh) in
her territory (at the downstream of the Teesta
river) before the Indian barrage was built
(Gazoldoba, 1987; inaugurated by Jyoti Basu, Prime
Minister of India) in order to use the
Teesta River for irrigation purposes to increase
agricultural production. However, as a
result of controlling the flow of water at the upstream,
the Dalia barrage has become useless.
Moreover, the people living in the Teesta basin area are
suffering from artificial droughts and
flash floods at the freewill of the Gozaldoba authorities.
A number of treaties for the water sharing
of international rivers have been signed before and
recently the signing effort of such
bilateral treaties is found. We believe that, treaties that are
only politically induced and do not include
provisions for economic interests of both the parties
are not likely sustain for long. But
sustenance of such treaties is indispensable for the
development of the countries. In this
situation a general economic model for sharing of
international rivers is badly needed.
Therefore, attempts have been made in this study to
clearly understand the nature of the
problem and to find out an optimal economic solution to
it. I have also concluded by making some
recommendations for optimal use of Teesta water,
which would be beneficial for both India
and Bangladesh.