Abstract
Arsenic contamination of groundwater in the lower Ganga-Meghna-Brahmaputra plains has been famously recognised as the worst man-made disaster ever. In this chapter, we bring to fore the contribution of various human interventions in fuelling this catastrophe. We look into the circumstances that led to the introduction of groundwater usage . We trace its gradual popularity and also take into account the role of hand pumps and other mechanisms of groundwater withdrawal that may have led to the escalation of the problem of arsenic contamination of groundwater manifold.
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Notes
- 1.
Refer to Table A.8.
- 2.
http://www.narc.org.np/rice_knowledge_bank/factsheet/boro.pdf accessed on 02.08.2015 at 14:03 h.
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© 2016 Springer Science+Business Media Singapore
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Das, A., Roy, J., Chakrabarti, S. (2016). In Love with the ‘Devil’s Water’. In: Socio-Economic Analysis of Arsenic Contamination of Groundwater in West Bengal. India Studies in Business and Economics. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-0682-1_7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-0682-1_7
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Online ISBN: 978-981-10-0682-1
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