Bangladesh, being an agricultural country, is highly dependent on groundwater irrigation given the fact that the existence of this resource was seen as abundant till recent years. As the surface water supply is decreasing day by day during the dry season, but the demand for irrigation is ever increasing, so the increasing trend in agricultural production is leaving the aquifer in vulnerable brink. In Bangladesh, about 95% of the total irrigated land is being covered by minor irrigation. Groundwater irrigation drastically increased in Bangladesh since the last three decades. But the source is limited and it is declining day by day due to intensive use of tube wells during dry season. According to Bangladesh Water Act, 2013 and its Rules, it is important to identify the water scarce areas and sustainable water resources management. The paradigm shift from ‘groundwater development’ to ‘groundwater management’ in Bangladesh as laid out in Bangladesh Water Rules, 2018 through aquifer mapping in different hydro-geological settings require robust groundwater management plans at the appropriate scale to be devised and implemented. As one of the major sources of water for the country as well as an inevitable part of the hydro-logical system, groundwater resource needs to be seen as limited resource and therefore its management plan should associate the specification of sustainable abstraction limit.

The recent downward trend in groundwater levels in the High Barind region, in the northwestern part of Bangladesh, is evidently representing the alarm, coined with the rapid urbanization which is persistently decreasing the potential recharge area. Groundwater recharge in Bangladesh is mainly take place by monsoon rainfall and flooding. Geographically the Barind area is slightly elevated compared to the other part of Bangladesh (9 to 45 meters from MSL), thus located in flood free zone. So, the main source of groundwater recharge in this region is only rainfall. But the lowest amount of rainfall occurs in this part of the country, and thus the Barind area has become severely drought prone zone. On the other hand, thick sticky clay surface of Barind Tract act as aquitard which impede groundwater recharge and increase surface runoff. As a result, groundwater table in this region is successively falling by years with increasing withdrawal of water for irrigation.

Self Development Initiative (SDI) has worked in Integrated Water Resource Management (IWRM) project as a Partner Consultant in Joint Venture with Institute of Water Modelling (IWM) for ”Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) and Baseline Study of the State of Water Resources in the High Barind Region” in Naogaon District. The project got implemented under the Water Resource Planning Organization (WARPO) of the Ministry of Water Resources of the Government of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh in compliance with the Bangladesh Water Rules, 2018 with financial support from Swiss Development and Cooperation Agency (SDC), in the High Barind region to protect the water sources and aquifers and develop sustainable water resources management in solving practical problems of water scarcity.

Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) is the process of involving local people in the analysis and interpretation of their own situation of a given rural area. The local people i.e. the participants took a leadership role in collecting, analyzing, interpreting and presenting information and in this process imparts knowledge and development insight to the specialists and extension agents. PRA approached embodies a whole range of techniques which revealed valuable information/data on the resources and skills existing in the village, wealth structure and dynamics of caste and class. For management of water resources, PRA is conducted to establish rapport with the village community as well as to identify and define problems for prioritization in the village itself.

Activities performed:

1. Performed the baseline study, identified the water sources, present water use scenario and sectoral water demand up to union/ mouza level of the High Barind region  through Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA)  approach.
2. Conducted Focus-Group Discussion (FGD) meetings through PRA at mouza level; each meeting covered 40 mouzas, with 1 participant from each mouza. One-third of the participants were women.
3. Identified the current location and status of observation/monitoring wells and irrigation borehole logs for each union/ mouza of the High Barind region.
4. Established baseline conditions concerning populations, natural resources, land use and farming systems, agricultural practices and their constraints and opportunities.
5. Ensured equitable account of views of different socio-economic groups; identified special needs and aspirations of specific group like women, marginal farmers, landless group, fishermen and minority groups.
6. Incorporated people’s needs, views and preferences in regarding water availability, water demand and water use in the study area through people’s participation and associated consultation process at local level with PRA approach.
7. Prepared all physical features of land use inventory using GIS application and satellite image processing; developed GIS, RS and Time series database collected from different primary and secondary sources.
8. Prepared a detail PRA report with comprehensive maps for water availability, water use, water demand, water scare areas, water zoning, aquifer formation and location and status of monitoring wells in the High Barind region.