The title of the journal paper is, 'Salinity Status in Groundwater: A study of selected Upazilas of

Southwestern Coastal Region in Bangladesh' written by Md. Rezaul Hasan, Md. Shamsuddin, and
A. F. M. Afzal Hossain. The quality of Groundwater, in term of Salinity especially, was the main
concern of this paper.

The coastal area of the country was selected as the study area due to the influence of tide and
presence of salinity in coastal rivers. The livelihood there, is highly dependent on the groundwater
for drinking, domestic, municipal, industrial and as well as for other needs. The intrusion of saline
water in the aquifer system due to reduction of upstream freshwater flow, shrimp farming and,
over abstraction of groundwater are creating worse condition. The study area covered mainly nine
upazilas of Khulna, Jeshore, and Satkhira districts with an area about 1534 square kilometers.

The water sample analysis of randomly selected water points in the study area with qualitative
information using PRA techniques for hydro-chemical investigation. The groundwater was
collected from shallow and deep hand tube wells and the significant quality parameters, such as,
pH, temperature, EC, TDS and salinity were tested in both field and lab as well. The authors were
conducted the social survey also for better understanding of the problems, raised due to saline
groundwater.

The tests result showed the water quality indicating low pH, low conductivity and, low TDS in
shallow tube wells compared to deep one, whereas, the high salinity was found in shallow tube
wells. Author indicaed the apprehension of increase in groundwater salinity. The salinity level
starts from the deep aquifer and found to be increased in level near the surface. However, in some
of the Upazillas, salinity level goes up with the increased depth. The highly beneficial and
economically viable shrimp fields are causing more intrusion of saline water in the soil.

Findings from the household survey says that the people living there are generally service holders,
shop keepers, small business men, teachers, and housewives. The locals usually suffer from
various diseases, such as, diarrhea, dysentery, and skin diseases, along with almost regular cold
and cough and they complained about the high iron concentration. However, the level of arsenic
contamination was claimed to be at margins. This findings regarding health conditions and their
occupational surveys are one of the amazing parts of this paper, since, this qualitative information
is nicely supplementing the objective of the paper and also created a clear view of their sufferings.
Limitations:

One of the limitations of this paper is the use of the Hatch Salinomenter for salinity level
measurement, since it has some limitations. Again, there were some mismatch between field test
values and lab test values of chloride especially. For low chloride concentration, the inconsistency
between field and lab values are great. Adding to that, the people living there are not that much
educated to understand the consequences of reduced water ground water quality, indicating that
the household survey may contain some errors as well.