Don’t forget to check the gas

Hundreds of residents poured onto the streets of the Bangladeshi capital Dhaka last week to protest against the lack of available drinking water.

Fed up with queuing for meagre supplies everyday, the people defied a ban on demonstrations to show their patience was wearing thin with the Dhaka Water and Sewerage Authority's inability to match output with demand.

On this occasion the demonstration passed off peacefully, but in the past, similar events have turned violent.

The problem faced by Bangladesh is a complex one. There is a water shortage because there is a power shortage and there is a power shortage because there is a natural gas shortage.

Dhaka suffers an estimated 1,500MW shortfall in electricity supply as power plants are unable to operate at full capacity because there is insufficient natural gas to go around. Electricity is needed to run the pumps in the wells that extract water from aquifers, which form the backbone of the country's water supply.

Demand for water is ballooning in Dhaka as aspirations for a higher standard of living drive people from the fields into the city. The capital's 11 million population is forecast to double over the next 20 years. The Dhaka Water and Sewerage Authority says it is supplying 1.50 billion litres of water a day against a demand of 2.25 billion litres.

The authority is investing in stand-by generators to provide back-up power for the some of the wells, but since many aquifers are coming to the end of their usefulness, often the capital outlay cannot be justified for the short-term benefit.

Increasingly, the utility is being forced to rely on surface-water sources. But herein lays another problem. The population explosion in Dhaka is also putting immense strain on the city's sanitation system and raw sewage is frequently discharged into rivers when the network cannot cope, which makes the water too polluted for use.

While this may be an extreme example of total infrastructure collapse, the Bangladesh experience should stand as a lesson for the Middle East, as it serves to illustrate what happens when utility providers fail to prepare adequately for future demand growth and the domino effect caused when one link in the utility chain is overlooked.

The western world was able to build up its infrastructure over time in response to a steady increase in population. But the unrestricted development here means utility providers do not have that luxury.

So a synchronised approach to expansion between power, water, gas and also cooling providers is essential to ensure that this vital chain remains intact.

Elizabeth Bains is the editor of Utilities Middle East.

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