Millions of smallholder farmers in Bangladesh pump huge amounts of groundwater for irrigation, helping to triple the country’s rice production and possibly mitigate floods during monsoon season.

Intensive irrigation and other agricultural improvements since the 1980s have enabled Bangladesh to produce enough food each year to be nearly self-sufficient. “In Bangladesh we rely heavily on groundwater for irrigation,” says Kazi Matin Ahmed at the University of Dhaka in Bangladesh. He says Bangladesh has a lot of groundwater but there are concerns it could be depleted.

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