Managed Aquifer Recharge (MAR) has an enormous potential for sustainable water provision in poor, delta communities. A unique opportunity arises in Bangladesh to evaluate MAR performance in saline aquifers. In 2012, a public-private consortium including UNICEF built twenty pilot MAR systems in the Khulna District. In 2014, the number of pilot systems is scheduled to grow to 100. The current systems show successes and failures, indicating knowledge gaps related to design, operation, water quality, governance, and business development. The project?s objective is to address these knowledge gaps by determining financial, institutional, environmental, technical, and social prerequisites for the successful regional-scale, self-propelling, and sustainable implementation of MAR systems in urbanizing, saline deltas. The project aims to train 4 PhD students, generate new knowledge, develop capacity among a variety of stakeholders, and disseminate lessons-learned, both regionally and globally. Our approach is to: - Determine hydrogeological and hydrogeochemical prerequisites for successful MAR application through evaluation of the performance of the existing 20 and planned 80 MAR systems, and by building and evaluating 4 dedicated research sites equipped with innovative sensors. The research sites will be simulated with state-of-the-art groundwater flow and reactive transport models. Simple screening models will be developed, which will allow for a priori evaluation of expected MAR performance at a specific location based on few, easily measured quantities. - Analyze MAR governance by identifying success and fail factors from existing experience with Pond Sand Filters to purify water, and experience with existing pilot MAR sites. Network analysis will be used to assess interactions between public and private partners. The present Technological Innovation System will be evaluated for its potential in the regional diffusion of MAR, and business cases for self-propelling regional MAR implementation will be developed. - Use a Geographic Information System to map locations with varying degrees of (potential) MAR success for the Bangladesh saline delta and for similar deltas worldwide. Relevant steering parameters will be derived from the hydrogeological, hydrogeochemical, and governance studies. Detailed research transects will be constructed to obtain insight in local scale hydrogeological/hydrogeochemical heterogeneity and effects of human influences (settlements, ponds, extractions). The project consortium includes four universities, a government agency, NGOs, and a consulting company. The successful completion of the project will result in a governance plan and guidelines for application of MAR systems in saline deltas, worldwide, which will contribute to a sustainable and save drinking water supply for many poor delta communities.

Arsenic-contaminated groundwater causes serious health risks affecting millions of people living in the Ganges-Brahmaputra-Meghna Delta. Mitigation attempts for this unresolved problem have taught critical success factors to be: true local embedding (social, technical and economical), adaptability and dynamics. DELTAPs integrative approach (Figure 1) aims for sustainable innovation to reduce contaminant exposure with Small-scale Piped Water Supply (SPWS) and active end-user participation through mobile crowd participation (MCP) and Do It Yourself (DIY) Laboratory. SPWS combines the attractiveness of socially/economically feasible tap connections with smart targeting of safest sources, centralized treatment and end-user inclusion. The character of SPWS matches the dynamic urbanizing regional context. However, it also requires fundamental understanding of interacting social and technical conditions, guaranteeing rootedness in site-specific contexts. In urban laboratories in Bangladesh and India, DELTAP integrates MCP with: - Dynamic geological models for prediction of arsenic patches in deltaic systems, - Blueprints for source-to mouth safe water supply, and, - Human-centered design framework for development of tangible DIY materials and processes. Project output consists of marketable products (e.g., visualization apps, smart taps) with business models for local SMEs, supported by larger SPWS public-private partnership programmes of water NGOs. Stakeholder co-production has a dominant role in the research methodology, at all levels: End-users produce MCP data through interactive apps; SMEs co-develop apps and DIY products; NGOs build SPWS for pilot research; joint science/NGO policy briefings. This co-production results in strong embedding of results, optimizing feasibility of highly needed impact for sustainable and inclusive development: creating pathways for safe drinking water for millions.

The project aims to accelerate the development of the smart phone application ‘TAPP’ to TAPP-BDP to contribute towards the interest of the Bangladesh Delta Plan (BDP) in clean drinking water through improved services. TAPP is a spin-off product of the UDW-DELTAP project, and flagged by the international reviewers and steering committee during the mid-term review as a high potential outcome of this ongoing project. TAPP has been developed to improve operation and maintenance of water supply systems in Bangladesh. TAPPs desired functionalities have been investigated and include water quality monitoring, service delivery, payment, interaction, and an educational package on water quality, preventive measures and health consequences. This project will focus on the TAPP-BDP’s development and promotion based on implementation with three local organizations in four of the six BDP hotspot areas: coastal (Khulna in Ganges river basin), barind / drought-prone (Kurigram in Brahmaputra river basin), river systems and estuaries (Chandpur in Meghna river basin) and urban areas (Chandpur, Kurigram). Chandpur and Khulna areas have arsenic contamination problems also. TAPP-BDP will contribute to BDP’s drinking water goals through a demand-based bottom-up approach. The TAPP-BDP project, in collaboration with DELTAP, will adopt the following five work packages (WPs): WP1-Stakeholder investigation for further app development and self-sustaining business-model WP2-Inclusive TAPP-BDP development in short sprints into a mature app WP3-Local embedding and promotion of TAPP-BDP through implementation trials (proof-of-concept) WP4-Integration of findings in an end-user participation framework for water projects WP5-Knowledge transfer, educational modules and policy influencing This project will deliver a smart, open-access app, which will aid communities, local governments, community-based-organizations, non-governmental-organizations, and private water suppliers in end-user inclusive monitoring, operation, and maintenance of improved water service solutions. It will enhance the sustainability of improved water supply services among poor-marginalized groups in BDP hot-spot and problematic areas.

The proposed research project aims at engaging young men and boys (age 14-21) to educate them on sexual reproductive health and rights (SRHR) while also contributing to prevent violence against women and girls (VAWG). To this aim, young men at different universities in Dhaka, and boys in secondary schools (grade 9-10) in Pabna, Sirajganj, Natore, Rangpur and Coxsbazar districts, will be mobilized through community activism aimed at questioning harmful gender norms, practices and rigid notions of masculinities. To evaluate the intervention, participatory action research will be carried out using Self Reflexive Diaries, a research tool tested during a previous pilot initiative, the Brave Men Campaign. During the first phase of this project, the Campus Hero Café ? a safe learning space for students - will be set up to train selected university students on SRHR. Simultaneously, school teachers and community organizations? volunteers will also be trained on how to facilitate dialogues using the Diaries and mobilize community support for student-led activism to prevent VAWG. In the second phase, the school teachers will facilitate SRHR learning using Diaries in their schools while the community mobilizers will support them to initiate community activism on violence prevention. Finally, selected clippings of the community activism - titled the ?Campus Heroes? - will be telecasted on a Satellite Television Channel and on social network. In the third and final phase, the learning of the initiative will be shared at different levels (local, national, regional and global) with special policy recommendations.

Over the past 10 years research and pilot projects have demonstrated the potential of Managed Aquifer Recharge (MAR) systems in helping to reduce the water supply problems in Bangladesh [1]. Salinization of the soil and groundwater are exacerbated by a climate-change induced sea level rise [2] and higher incidences of cyclonic storm surges. The presence of geogenic arsenic in the groundwater – which is detrimental to human health – adds another problem to drinking water supply. With MAR, freshwater is captured from the plentiful monsoon rains, filtered and stored in the aquifer underground, thereby creating a freshwater reserve that is safe from evaporation, contamination [3] and secured from surface inundations by saline water. With the proposed project we will facilitate taking the MAR technology from the piloting phase to implementation on a larger scale. The DeltaMAR research project resulted in defining parameters for MAR in coastal Bangladesh, with regard to both physical/geohydrological and governance aspects. Using the parameters, it is possible to define zones in the coastal belt where MAR is feasible. However, for direct implementation under BDP2100, practical designs for on-the-ground-implementation are still missing. The ultimate outcome of project are national guidelines for MAR implementation to be adopted by the high level national committee on MAR (HLNC) and the technical committee of MAR (TC). During the previous MAR projects for rural drinking water provision [3] and, more recently, for irrigation agriculture [4] valuable knowledge on the technical design of MAR systems in the context of rural Bangladesh was developed. The aim of this project is to compile the knowledge of improved local MAR system designs gained during the previous research and to develop additional designs for different application fields. These technical designs are based on local available materials, technologies and prevailing circumstances. The materials will be drafted to aid local practitioners in implementing MAR projects. Next to the technical designs, templates for terms of references (TORs) will be developed. Furthermore, a matrix presenting the different MAR system applications in relation to the prevailing physical landscape properties will be created to support site selection.