Does Rainwater Harvesting Contribute to Fight Climate Change and Women Empowerment in Bangladesh?

Agriculture, domestic, and industry rely on water resources systems for fulfilling water demand while water resources systems face both climate-induced extreme events and management and governance problems. These constraints lead to a mismatch between demand and supply of water for those sectors. This study applies central tendency and variability to analyze data and mixed methods approach to interpret the result. Throughout 1999-2019, the growth rate of population, gross domestic product, and urban population is 1.354%, 6.084%, and 3.70% correspondingly, contributing to increased water demand. However, average groundwater depletion increased from 2.455km3 (1989-1990) to 4.9016km3 while average flood-affected areas enhanced by 8,644km2 in 2014-2018 compared to 1988-1993. Furthermore, salt-affected areas incremented by 2,22,810ha in 2009 contrasted to 1973, whereas the mean wind speed of cyclones increased by 30.02km in 2015-2020 compared to 1988-1995. The mean sea-level rise increased by 16.8cm and 169.2cm in 1995-2000 compared to 1979-1983 in Cox’s Bazar and Char Changa station, respectively. The current approach to address the mismatch may not be effective as a long-term solution due to climate change and geographical context so that this study urges policy makers to shift their focus on water sources for addressing the gap between water demand and supply in Bangladesh. This study will create attention of policymakers, water managers, water experts, and academics for further study in adaptation with climate extreme events which impact on water resources, damage social economic and enviornmnetal assets, and displaced people. It also urges finding and accommodating a sustainable approach to reducing the water demand-supply gap. This study is relevant for various government organizations dealing with water resources management, policymakers, and professionals in water resources management and governance. Sustainable water resources management is one of the significant factors in achieving sustainable development goals and alleviating poverty. Since sustainable development is a multidimensional concept, it is influenced by different factors like water access, poverty, socioeconomic development. Rainwater collection and use are ways to ensure sustainable water resources management and increase water access where formal water suppliers fail to address the water crisis. This research explores what key factors influence the economic benefit of rainwater harvesting using Ordinary Least Square regression on primary data collected from 1040 households at a subdistrict of southwestern Bangladesh. Six factors have been measured the price of water, age of rainwater harvesting, the total cost of rainwater harvesting, storage capacity, number of children, and income. It is the first kind of empirical research that connects rainwater harvesting, economic advantage, and econometric analysis. The empirical result shows that income (1.253***), storage capacity (49.425***), price of water (80669.9***), age of rainwater harvesting (8740.16***), and total cost (1.649***) have positive correlation with economic benefit while the number of children (-3501.90***) has a negative. It concluded that economic benefit from rainwater harvesting could be improved by including in water management policy or different policies for rainwater harvesting, particularly for the rain-intensive country. Moreover, it can be a tool to alleviate poverty and achieve sustainable development goals through increasing water access. However, context specificity and multidimensionality is the limitation of this study. Water security has been long connected with facilitating women empowerment that is more crucial in developing countries. The rising water demand may hamper water security, leading to a constraint empowerment process. Women empowerment is rising in Bangladesh, but the connection between water security through rainwater harvesting and women empowerment is the first study in this circumstance. It may provide an alley to determine the connection between water security ensured by rainwater harvesting and empowerment. This quantitative study explored the survey data of 1051 households to measure the possibility of economic, social, and political empowerment through water security. The result shows that economic, social, and political empowerment has a positive and statistically significant relation with water security, but context specificity indicates that interpretation of the findings is not uncomplicated. Moreover, male household head, income, number of family members, and operating rainwater harvesting negatively influence water security level while the cost to build up rainwater harvesting infrastructure, storage capacity, and land ownership positively influences water security. Based on the results, policies and programs that stimulate women's empowerment need more understanding and strategies concerning water security and empowerment for gender equality and achieve sustainable development goals five and six.