Drastic Groundwater Depletion In Cox’s Bazar: Struggles Of Host And Rohingya Communities – Analysis

 March 10, 2025 

By Zulker Naeen

Cox’s Bazar, located in southeastern Bangladesh along the Bay of Bengal, is home to the longest unbroken sea beach in the world and has become the site of the largest refugee settlement due to the mass displacement of the Rohingya people fleeing persecution in Myanmar. The region is also a stark example of human-induced climate change, with deforestation, soil erosion, and freshwater depletion escalating due to the refugee crisis and broader environmental pressures.

Much attention has been given to the living conditions within the refugee camps; however, the environmental crisis affecting these host populations, particularly regarding water security, agricultural sustainability, and long-term ecological resilience, the silent suffering of the host communities remains largely unreported.  

Water scarcity has become one of the most pressing issues in Cox’s Bazar, as both the refugee and host communities struggle to access clean and safe drinking water. Extracting groundwater using existing shallow tube wells has become a challenge in Cox’s Bazar as water levels continue to drop rapidly due to the burden of the Rohingya influx, the needs of over a million refugees further depleting groundwater and making it harder for locals to source water for daily use.

Drastic Groundwater Decline Near Rohingya Camps

Rohingya populations have fluctuated in Cox’s Bazar since 1991, but the massive influx of refugees since August 2017 has significantly intensified pressures on host communities.

Since August 25, 2017, over 750,000 Rohingya have fled to Bangladesh, according to the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR).

As of 31 July 2023, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) Bangladesh and the Government of Bangladesh had jointly registered 962,416 refugees in the country.

Now the daily water demand for nearly 1.1 million Rohingyas in the 34 highly congested camps of two upazilas was 22 million litres, but due to the ongoing water crisis, their access has now dropped to just 15 litres per person.

To supply water to the Rohingyas, around 5,731 swallow tube wells were set up in the area at different slopes in the camp in 2017, resulting in excessive water withdrawal from the shallow aquifer and drying up the groundwater, this excessive dependence on groundwater is lowering the water levels in the area. In the meantime, many tube wells have already dried up and pondered the groundwater crisis. The crisis becomes deep during the summer and winter seasons. 

With nearly 15 million litres of groundwater being drawn each day in the Rohingya refugee camps.

UNHCR continues to closely track groundwater supplies, the refugees were provided with water purifying tablets and containers for safer water collection and storage. 

29% of refugees now use piped distribution systems to access chlorinated water, while the rest get their water from tube wells.

Simultaneously, groundwater contamination is a significant concern to the experts in this area of the cause of leakage, seepage, and overflow. Thousands of non-functional latrines and tube wells contaminate water. 

The experts of the Environmental Department of Bangladesh examined that 70% of the groundwater in the camp area is polluted. 

Furthermore, poor waste management in the camp area is affecting the environment. 

Alarming Decline in Freshwater Resources

The Rohingya influx has accelerated groundwater depletion in Teknaf and Ukhia, causing tube wells to dry up, whereas previously, shallow wells sufficed to meet  water demand.

The water level is declining across various unions in eight upazilas, including  Cox’s Bazar town, with the situation being particularly severe in the surrounding areas of Cox’s Bazar city, Ukhia, Teknaf, and Chakaria. 

The groundwater level in Cox’s Bazar’s Kalatali area has dropped by 20 to 30 feet, rendering many water pumps in over three hundred residential hotels in Sagarpar have been lying unused.

People here in Cox’s Bazar have been suffering a lot as the groundwater level is dropping by 10-15 feet every year. 

Information from Cox’s Bazar Municipality and Public Health Engineering Department said many tube wells have lying unused in different areas of Cox’s Bazar town. Even 10 years ago, the groundwater level was found to be between 120 and 150 feet, now it has to go deeper than 300 to 500 feet. 

A report in 2023 states that around 23% of the 31,000 tube wells in Cox’s Bazar-approximately 7,000- have become useless, even though water is not available in at least several thousand tube wells.

However, day by day the water level in Cox’s Bazar is going down due to the felling of trees, cutting of mountains, digging of canals, filling of ponds and reservoirs, excessive use of underground water, construction of unplanned structures and climate change. As a result, there is a shortage of drinking water.

The water levels around the Rohingya camps in Teknaf have fallen by around 5 to 9 metres, it reveals that freshwater options are extremely limited, where the bedrock surface at 25-30 metres below ground level makes deep tube-wells a costly option for the locals.

Faecal contamination is now present in more than four-fifths of sources, and 93 hectares of arable land around the Rohingya camps cannot be cultivated. An additional 380 hectares of land cannot be cultivated owing to a lack of water for irrigation.

Host Communities in Peril: The Growing Water Crisis

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.

Even after three attempts, extracting water by digging 800 meters proves impossible in some cases, forcing residents to depend on water pipelines from nearby villages to secure fresh drinking water. 

It reveals that freshwater options are extremely limited in Teknaf, where the bedrock surface lies 25-30 meters below ground, making deep tube wells costly for locals.

Almost all shallow tube wells in the district have become useless as salty and muddy water rises from them, forcing people to rely on ponds, which are frequently contaminated by salt water and eventually become unfit for human consumption.

Residents are now compelled to invest at least Tk 1,50,000 (USD 1,230) for deep tube wells, a significant increase from just Tk 15,000 (USD 1,23) for shallow tube wells. This dramatic shift is driving groundwater extraction at unsustainable levels, far surpassing the natural rate of replenishment.

Especially, women and children in Cox’s Bazar trek kilometres daily from their houses to a local pond for water, a routine struggle that has been taken for granted, exacerbating a water crisis where millions lack adequate access to clean  water.  

Many host community households now rely on water pipelines from distant villages, while traditional shallow tube wells no longer provide sufficient water. 

Increased dependency on bottled water or water treatment solutions, leads to higher living costs. The economic pressure on families is increasing while buying water. 

Vulnerability of Coastal Aquifers to Saltwater Intrusion

The coastal aquifers in  Cox’s Bazar are highly vulnerable to saltwater intrusion, exacerbated by the overuse of groundwater resources for tourism and local needs. 

Saltwater intrusion from the Bay of Bengal, Bakkhali River, Kohelia River, and Mathamuhuri River is increasingly salinizing groundwater in the coastal part of Chakaria Upazila, driven by rising sea levels and declining river navigability.

During a study, one-third of tube wells contained sodium levels that exceeded the tolerable limit for taste, particularly during the dry season, which is the most salt-intensive period.

The salinity level seemed to vary depending on the depth of tube wells, and those deeper than 200 m were likely to be salinity-free. Even if households felt their water was too salty during a certain period of the year, they used other households’ tube wells for a while and managed during the most salt-intensive time. 

However, analysis of the spatial pattern of the depth of tube wells showed, that some communities may suffer more broadly from saline water and need to get water from a long distance away.

It is alarming that salinity in Bangladesh, including non-coastal areas, has grown by roughly 26% in the past 35 years. People living in salinity-prone areas are 10% more likely to suffer from water-borne diseases than people living in low-salinity areas.

The alarming decline in freshwater resources near the Rohingya camps, as revealed by recent studies, underscores the severity of the crisis. 

Drastic groundwater depletion, compounded by the vulnerability of coastal aquifers to saltwater intrusion, is pushing both host and refugee communities toward an uncertain future. 

Without urgent interventions, the worsening water crisis will continue to threaten livelihoods, public health, and the fragile ecosystem of Cox’s Bazar.

Zulker Naeen is a research coordinator at the Center for Critical and Qualitative Studies at the University of Liberal Arts Bangladesh. He is reachable at zulker.naeen@ulab.edu.bd

 Kutupalong Refugee Camp in  Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh. The camp is one of three, which house up to 300,000 Rohingya people fleeing inter-communal violence in Myanmar. Credit: Wikimedia Commons.

Collapsing Buildings In Egypt’s Alexandria Raise Alarm

Alexandria's coastal buildings face the risk of erosion and collapse due to rising sea levels. Copyright: Essam Heggy/SciDev.Net

 March 9, 2025  

By Mohammed El-Said

Buildings in the ancient Egyptian city of Alexandria have been collapsing at an alarming rate over the last two decades—a fate which could await coastal cities around the world, according to researchers.

Over the past 20 years, the densely populated port city has seen more than 280 buildings collapse—a rate ten times higher than in previous decades—according to the study published in the journal Earth Future.

It says more than 7,000 buildings in the most vulnerable part of the coastline are now at risk of crumbling, making it the most at-risk area of the Mediterranean Basin.

Severe coastal erosion and rising sea levels—a result of climate change—are driving this phenomenon, which is not unique to Alexandria, says the researchers.

Essam Heggy, a researcher at the University of Southern California, USA, who led the team, told SciDev.Net: “Alexandria is a living example of the challenges facing other coastal cities in the region due to climate change and uncontrolled urban expansion.

“The results of the study reflect the potential risks and preventive measures that can be applied globally.”

Coastal erosion and rising sea levels accelerate seawater intrusion into groundwater layers, increasing water and salt levels.

This destabilises the soil and speeds up the corrosion of building foundations, according to the study.

The researchers analysed geographic, geological and engineering data to identify the locations and characteristics of collapsed buildings.

They also used government reports and news archives to monitor damaged or threatened buildings and assessed the development of the coastline using satellite imagery and topographic maps.

“We also conducted a soil settlement analysis in different regions, which revealed a link between poor soil stability and increased building collapses, as well as a statistical analysis of geological change rates to assess the impact of coastal retreat on infrastructure,” said Sara Fouad, a visiting researcher at the Faculty of Engineering and Design at the Technical University of Munich, Germany.

The area hardest hit by extreme erosion is the Gharb district of Alexandria, where the shoreline has retreated by an average of 31 metres a year over the last century, according to the study.

Coastal erosion has led to increased salt infiltration into shallow coastal aquifers a few kilometres inland, negatively affecting soil quality and moisture levels, researchers explain.

The over-extraction of groundwater is exacerbating seawater intrusion, leading to further salt intrusion into coastal aquifers and building foundations, according to the analysis.

Areas that have undergone extensive land reclamation are particularly vulnerable due to damage to the foundations, says Heggy.

He says the problem is made worse by a lack of maintenance of old buildings, poor urban planning, weak sewage infrastructure, and insufficient legislation.

Poor management of the waterfront has also been a factor, believes Fouad. She says a comprehensive approach to risk management and sustainable urban planning is needed.

Other cities at risk

Although the study focused on Alexandria, its results carry warnings for other coastal cities in the southern Mediterranean, such as Tunis and Tripoli.

The study notes that coastal municipalities in Tunisia have reported significant structural damage from beach erosion, particularly in areas experiencing rapid urban expansion.

Building collapse rates along Italy’s southern coast meanwhile have increased by nine per cent over the past two decades, raising concerns about the safety of thousands of buildings.

Amir Gohar, senior lecturer in urban planning and management at the University of the West of England, says widespread urbanisation along Egypt’s North Coast, including the development of coastal tourist villages, is disrupting national sedimentation processes and driving sea levels up.

“Consequently, shoreline erosion, combined with rising sea levels, affects the structural foundations of coastal building strips in major cities,” he said.

He said the impact of sea level rises varies across Mediterranean countries but is “a persistent challenge for the entire region”.

‘Living beaches’

The study proposes environmental and technical solutions based on nature-based “soft defence” techniques, such as green infrastructure and eco-friendly coastal designs, to protect coastal buildings against climate change.

These solutions include so-called “living beaches”, designed to stabilise the shoreline and protect wildlife, as well as breakwaters, rain gardens, and restoration of wetlands, to reduce the risks of flooding, seawater intrusion, and soil erosion.

“We recommend designing a green street network with salt-tolerant plants along the coast, which enhances water absorption and mitigates the impact of high tides,” added Fouad.

Mattheios Santamouris, professor of high-performance architecture at the University of New South Wales, Australia, believes the study provides a strong analysis of the hydro-climatic factors affecting building collapse.

He says better coordination and cooperation with local authorities could help in implementing the preventive measures proposed by the study.

Egypt must adopt strategies for both adaptation and mitigation, adds Gohar.

These could include building sea walls and flood barriers, as well as restoration of mangrove forests and coral reefs, to provide natural defences against storm surges.

Removing buildings and relocating communities away from vulnerable areas should also be considered, says Gohar, as well as implementing regulations to stop the expansion of coastal resorts on the North Coast.

This article was produced by SciDev.Net’s Middle East and North Africa regional office.

Mohammed El-Said writes for SciDev.Net.