Environmental irony: summoning death in Bangladesh, Atkins, P.J., Hassan, M.M. and Dunn, C.E. (2007), Environment & Planning A 39, 2699-2714

The arsenic crisis that affects at least 30 million water consumers in Bangladesh has been called the world’s greatest ever environmental health disaster. Although the problem and the potential solutions have been presented confidently in the various media, the argument of this paper is that, ironically, very little of the science or the technology is certain. From the spatial and depth variabilities of contamination, through safety thresholds, to the accuracy of field testing kits, we find indeterminacy. Rather than shying away from such uncertainty, however, our argument is that mitigation policies must acknowledge and embrace it if any real progress is to be made.