Collection of drinking water in coastal area of Bangladesh. Location: Debhata, Satkhira, Bangladesh. Image via Wikimedia Commons by Balaram Mahalder. CC BY-SA 3.0.
Collection of drinking water in coastal areas of Bangladesh. Location: Debhata, Satkhira, Bangladesh. Image via Wikimedia Commons by Balaram Mahalder. CC BY-SA 3.0.
Cox’s Bazar, a coastal area of southeastern Bangladesh, home to both local Bangladeshi communities and the world’s largest refugee camp, primarily filled with Rohingya refugees, is facing a worsening freshwater crisis. While host communities struggle with groundwater depletion and the cost of establishing deep tube wells, the growing Rohingya population is further intensifying the crisis and putting a strain on the region's resources.
The water crisis is so severe that in order to get water, residents must travel to a shop where water is extracted from a deep aquifer, treated, and sold.
In the Shyamnagar sub-district of Satkhira district, in southwestern Bangladesh, a resident purchases 60 litres of water per trip, spending BDT 30 (USD 0.25) on the water and an additional BDT 20 (USD 0.16) for the pedal cart transport.
With a monthly water expense of BDT 400 (USD 3.27) — over 10 percent of a landless agricultural labourer’s average income — safe water in coastal Bangladesh costs 40 times more than in cities, highlighting a severe and disproportionate burden on vulnerable communities.
Extracting drinking water using existing shallow tube wells has become a challenge in the Ukhiya and Teknaf neighbourhoods of Cox’s Bazar, as water levels continue to drop rapidly due to the increased population as a result of the Rohingya influx.
Rohingya populations have fluctuated in Cox’s Bazar since 1991. However, beginning in August 2017, there was a massive influx of refugees into Bangladesh when violence against them began escalating in their home state of Rakhine, Myanmar. This influx has intensified pressures on host communities, which could face a similar economic burden due to freshwater scarcity.
By July 31, 2023, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and the Government of Bangladesh had documented a total of 962,416 registered refugees, highlighting the scale of displacement and the ongoing humanitarian challenges in the country. There are undoubtedly thousands of refugees who remain unregistered and, therefore, are missing from this tally.
The daily water demand in the refugee camps has now reached 22 million litres.
Host communities in areas adjacent to the Rohingya camps are facing a severe water crisis, as thousands of tube wells have dried up, forcing some villages in Teknaf to drill as deep as 500 feet to access groundwater.
Interviews with host communities reveal that the cost of installing deep tube wells has surged to BDT 1,50,000 (USD 1,230), compared to BDT 15,000 (USD 123) for shallow wells, leading to excessive groundwater extraction beyond natural replenishment rates.
Their struggle highlights the severe freshwater scarcity in Teknaf, where the bedrock surface lies 25–30 meters deep, making deep tube wells an expensive solution for locals.
The need to fetch water from distant sources and the growing reliance on bottled water or treatment solutions are driving up the cost of living and increasing economic pressure on families.
Recent attempts to extract drinking water by digging 800 metres into the earth proved impossible, forcing a few of the host communities in Teknaf to depend on water pipelines from nearby villages to secure fresh drinking water, spreading the crisis even further.
Why is Cox’s Bazar running out of safe water?
People in Cox’s Bazar have been suffering greatly as the groundwater level is dropping by 10–15 feet every year. Even 10 years ago, the groundwater level was found to be between 120 and 150 feet; now, diggers must go between 300 to 500 feet to reach water.
A report in 2023 states that around 23 percent of the 31,000 tube wells in Cox’s Bazar — approximately 7,000 — have become defunct.
Almost all shallow tube wells in the district have become useless as salty and muddy water rises from them, rather than potable drinking water. This forces people to rely on ponds, which are frequently contaminated by salt water and eventually become unfit for human consumption.
No recent study has been conducted on the water crisis or salinity levels, particularly in the host communities and nearby areas of Cox’s Bazar. However, a 2019 study on salinity in Chakaria Upazila found that, during the dry season, one-third of tube wells contained excessive sodium, while deeper wells exceeding 200 meters were more likely to be salinity-free.
In addition to the Rohingya influx, the water level in Cox’s Bazar is steadily declining due to deforestation, mountain cutting, canal digging, pond and reservoir filling, excessive groundwater use, unplanned construction, and climate change, leading to a shortage of drinking water.
The government has already addressed the water crisis and initiated several projects by encouraging rainwater harvesting and surface water conservation as sustainable alternatives for clean water supply to the host communities.
In addition to increased government allocation and investment, measures such as halting groundwater use, digging large-scale ponds, canals, and reservoirs to capture rainwater, and creating freshwater reserves are being implemented to address the safe water crisis in Cox’s Bazar.
BRAC, one of the largest NGOs in the world, has established deep tube wells, boreholes, and piped water networks to deliver chlorinated water into Cox’s Bazar, providing fresh drinking water to both Rohingya and host communities, though the sustainability of this support remains uncertain due to the logistical challenges associated with running the world’s largest refugee camp.
Access to fresh drinking water is a fundamental human right, yet coastal communities in Bangladesh are struggling against an escalating crisis.
What was once a basic entitlement has become a daily struggle now— host communities spend extra labour hours fetching water, setting pipelines to collect water from the nearest villages, and bearing the economic burden of purchasing water from treatment plants.