A Critical Review of Water Resources and Their Management in Bhutan

Tariq, Muhammad Atiq Ur Rehman; Wangchuk, Kelden; Muttil, Nitin

doi:10.3390/hydrology8010031

Cited by 18 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 61 publications

(95 reference statements)

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“…Bhutan is considered to be one of the countries with the highest water availability per capita, but only 1% of it is accessible for consumption, mainly from surface water sources [51]. These water resources and their consumption become the major pathway for the entrance of arsenic in the population of this country.…”

Section: Asiamentioning

confidence: 99%

Arsenic Exposure via Contaminated Water and Food Sources

Rehman

Katsoyiannis

Kokkinos

et al. 2022

Water

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Arsenic poisoning constitutes a major threat to humans, causing various health problems. Almost everywhere across the world certain “hotspots” have been detected, putting in danger the local populations, due to the potential consumption of water or food contaminated with elevated concentrations of arsenic. According to the relevant studies, Asia shows the highest percentage of significantly contaminated sites, followed by North America, Europe, Africa, South America and Oceania. The presence of arsenic in ecosystems can originate from several natural or anthropogenic activities. Arsenic can be then gradually accumulated in different food sources, such as vegetables, rice and other crops, but also in seafood, etc., and in water sources (mainly in groundwater, but also to a lesser extent in surface water), potentially used as drinking-water supplies, provoking their contamination and therefore potential health problems to the consumers. This review reports the major areas worldwide that present elevated arsenic concentrations in food and water sources. Furthermore, it also discusses the sources of arsenic contamination at these sites, as well as selected treatment technologies, aiming to remove this pollutant mainly from the contaminated waters and thus the reduction and prevention of population towards arsenic exposure.

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Section: Asiamentioning

confidence: 99%

Arsenic Exposure via Contaminated Water and Food Sources

Rehman

Katsoyiannis

Kokkinos

et al. 2022

Water

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“…Moreover, hydropower development in the Brahmaputra basin is hard to stop because each nation has adopted initiatives to gain low-carbon electricity in the next thirty years (Table 4). Bhutan's abundant hydropower resources have enabled it to become a negative-emission nation, enjoying booming development and building good relationships with India and Bangladesh by exporting surplus hydroelectricity (Ranjan, 2019;Tariq et al, 2021;Yasuda et al, 2017). Obviously, India and Bangladesh need affordable green energy because both of them largely rely on fossil fuels.…”

Section: Sustainable Hydropower Development Integrating All Policy Co...mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Joint hydropower development schemes between Bhutan-India and Bhutan-Bangladesh should be extended to multilateral coordination among all four countries(He, 2021a). With the impact of climate change, the expansion of hydropower dams on the Brahmaputra River looks inevitable, to reduce carbon emissions(Gamble, 2019), acquire green energy(Qamar et al, 2019), irrigate land in dry seasons(Chowdhury, 2009) and manage disasters and increasing runoff from melting glaciers(Tariq et al, 2021).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Coalition and contradiction in managing Brahmaputra: Opportunities for more hydropower?

Pittock

Kamruzzaman

et al. 2022

Preprint

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Transboundary sharing of river water is not just an international problem, and it also cascades down to regional, state and local levels. Water cooperation in the Brahmaputra River basin among China, India, Bhutan and Bangladesh has long been contested. Better transboundary management of Brahmaputra requires a new direction from the current situation of fragmented cooperation, conflicts and disputes in the region and increasing threats of climate change. However, it is unclear how the four countries can cooperate and what the cornerstones for their cooperation might be. To explore possible consensus, we conducted an advocacy coalition assessment of the four countries based on the heterogeneous ecosystem services valued by each nation. While China and India are focused on politics, Bangladesh and Bhutan are primarily concerned about the basin in physical terms. Although each nation values the Brahmaputra in different ways, it is possible to initiate strong collaboration based on shared beliefs. We find that developing hydropower sustainably meets the needs and expectations of all nations, especially under the threats of climate change. A sustainable hydropower coalition can help to reduce carbon emissions, acquire green energy, irrigate land in dry seasons, and manage disasters and increasing runoffs from melting glaciers. We conclude our paper with insights for each nation and hydropower development as a whole that might help the nations to manage the Brahmaputra River more sustainably by overcoming their unmatched or mismatched values and interest, and achieving a win-win solution to manage the Brahmaputra River more sustainably.

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“…The rapid urbanization, infrastructure development and increased rural urban migration has aggravated the quality of water resources in Bhutan. Moreover, technological methods to model, predict and forecast the quality parameters of water in Bhutan remain unexploited in Bhutan [21]. This study aims to determine the best fit model to assess the water quality parameters in Wangchu river which is located in the capital city of the country.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Performance assessment of data driven water models using water quality parameters of Wangchu river, Bhutan

et al. 2022

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Multifarious anthropogenic activities triggered by rapid urbanization has led to contamination of water sources at unprecedented rate, with less surveillance, investigation and mitigation. The use of artificial intelligence (AI) in tracking and predicting water quality parameters has surpassed the use of other conventional methods. This study presents the assessment of three main models: adaptive neuro fuzzy inference system (ANFIS), artificial neural network (ANN) and multiple linear regression (MLR) on water quality parameters of Wangchu river located at capital city of Bhutan. The performance and predictive ability of these models are compared and the optimal model for predicting the parameters are recommended based on the coefficient correlation (CC), root mean square error (RMSE) and Nash–Sutcliffe efficiency (NSE) evaluation criteria. Overall NSE and RMSE, the ANN model predicted parameters with maximum efficiency of 97.3 percent and minimum error of 8.57. The efficiency of MLR and ANFIS model are 95.9 percent and 94.1 percent respectively. The overall error generated by MLR and ANFIS are 10.64 and 12.693 respectively. From the analysis made, the ANN is recommended as the most suitable model in predicting the water quality parameters of Wangchu river. From the six-training function of ANN, trainBR (Bayesian Regularization) achieved the CC of 99.8%, NSE of 99.3% and RMSE of 9.822 for next year data prediction. For next location prediction, trainBR achieved CC of 99.2%, NSE of 98.4% and RMSE of 6.485, which is the higher correlation and maximum efficiency with less error compared to rest of the training functions. The study represents first attempt in assessing water quality using AI technology in Bhutan and the results showed a positive conclusion that the traditional means of experiments to check the quality of river water can be substituted with this reliable and realistic data driven water models. Article highlights Total dissolved solids (TDS), electrical conductivity (EC), potential of hydrogen (pH) and dissolved oxygen (DO) are selected as main water quality parameters as data for modeling. Artificial neural network model gives highest efficiency and accuracy compared to MLR and ANFIS model. Use of artificial intelligence shows better performance to provide water quality and future predictions over conventional methods leading to conservation of water resources and sustainability.

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A Critical Review of Water Resources and Their Management in Bhutan

Cited by 18 publications

References 61 publications

Arsenic Exposure via Contaminated Water and Food Sources

Arsenic Exposure via Contaminated Water and Food Sources

Coalition and contradiction in managing Brahmaputra: Opportunities for more hydropower?

Performance assessment of data driven water models using water quality parameters of Wangchu river, Bhutan

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