## 8 Recent National Legal and Institutional Framework on Water Management  
The first comprehensive national policy related to climate change and water in Bangladesh was The National Water Policy (NWP), which was announced in 1999 and covered the short-, medium-, and long-term perspectives for water resources. As a follow-up to this NWP, the National Water Management Plan (NWMP) was developed in 2001 to look at the implementation and investment sides to address the priorities identified in the NWP. The NWP was developed to guide both the public and private sectors to ensure optimal water sector development and management. The NWP does not explicitly mention climate change in the document. However, many actions/measures identified in the NWP are harmonious with climate change adaptation, such as the early warning and flood proofing systems are recommended in the NWP. In addition, the NWP also classifies several challenges, including salinity intrusion in fresh water. It also identifies the loss of coastal zone habitat, droughts, and flood stress. Importantly, the NWMP has taken climate change as one of the critical factors in determining future water supply, including the sea-level rise impacts, which guide the implementation of the NWP. The NWMP covers effective planning and preparations for managing risks in water sectors under flood and drought conditions, highlighting both structural and non-structural measures. In addition, different climate change scenarios in the future, criteria for assessing vulnerability, and potential measures to reduce the vulnerability under climate change are discussed in the NWMP. In 2004, the NWMP identified eight major programs to be implemented to address climate change issues in the short-term (2000-2005), medium-term (2006-2010), and long-term (2011-2025) periods. In addition to this NWP and NWMP, the Coastal Zone Policy was prepared in 2005 to guide the management and development of the coastal zone in Bangladesh, which includes the most vulnerable locations in Bangladesh in terms of climate change impacts. This coastal zone in Bangladesh is being continually confronted by cyclones, storm surge, localized storms, and sea-level rise, which have caused devastating impacts on these low-lying coastal areas. In response to climate change adaptation and mitigation, a great initiative was taken in 2005 to formulate the National Adaptation Program of Action (NAPA). The NAPA identifies flood, drought, cyclone and storm surge, sea-level rise, and salinity intrusion as some of the climate-related hazards. However, it has not adequately covered riverbank erosion, which is one of the major hazards in river management under changing climatic conditions in Bangladesh. Like the CZP, the NAPA also suggested an enhancement in providing safe drinking water to coastal communities to address the increasing salinity issues in water because of sea-level rise. NAPA helped to initiate a ten-year-long program called the Bangladesh Climate Change Strategy and Action Plan (BCCSAP). The BCCSAP was launched by the Bangladesh Government to identify the immediate needs for adaptation and to address the issues of climate change. This plan has focused on six principles to identify potential measures to adapt to climate change issues, which are food security, social protection and health, comprehensive disaster management, infrastructure, research and knowledge management, mitigation and low carbon development, capacity building, and institutional development [111]. BCCSAP identifies several climate-change-related issues and impacts, including flood, drought, sea-level rise, salinity intrusion, cyclone, storm surge, river erosion, water supply, and sanitation issues. Some of the other relevant policies addressing climate change impact to some extent include the National Sanitation Strategy (2005), the Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP), and the National Conservation Strategy (NCS).