Elevated arsenic in groundwater is the greatest environmental problem in Bangladesh. Spatial variability of arsenic in groundwater has been examined by semivariogram analysis that revealed high degree of small-scale spatial variability in alluvial aquifers. Small-scale variability of arsenic concentrations, indicated by high "nugget' values in semivariograms, is associated with heterogeneity in local-scale geology and geochemical processes. In unsampled locations, arsenic concentrations have been predicted using both deterministic and stochastic prediction methods.

Author describes a success story of implementing a distributed SCADA system first time in India in a rural water supply scheme of PHED, Govt. of West Bengal for arsenic prone areas.

Geographic Information System (GIS) was utilized to apply a modified DRASTIC method to assess the aquifer vulnerability to pollution of English Bazar Block of Malda District, West Bengal, India. In the western, central and southern parts of the study area the aquifer is prone to contamination. Therefore, in these regions pesticides, which may contain arsenic or arsenic rich groundwater, should not be used in irrigated land or mango orchards. In order to understand the reliability of the aquifer vulnerability, sensitivity analysis was carried out.

In the early 1980s, K. C. Saha from the School of Tropical Medicine in Kolkata attributed skin lesions in West Bengal, India, to exposure to arsenic in groundwater pumped from shallow tube wells. Despite these findings, millions of tube wells have been
installed across the Bengal Basin, the geological formation that includes West Bengal and Bangladesh, and across river floodplains and deltas in southern Asia.