From Sci Div Net By - Sanjeet Bagcchi Edited by Vinuri Randhula Silva, A Bangladeshi farmer transplants rice. Underground reservoirs are being tapped to supply smallholder farms in Bangladesh. Copyright: International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0) . This image has been cropped. , . . [NEW DELHI] The pumping up of groundwater by Bangladesh’s 16 million smallholder farmers has led to a massive storage capture of underground reservoirs rivalling the storage capacity of the world’s large dams, according to a study . Published in Science, the study said that groundwater-fed irrigation had transformed much of Bangladesh’s single-crop, rain-watered floodplains into highly productive double-cropping and, in places, triple-cropping lands to make the country the world’s fourth highest producer of rice. The researchers say the sustainable irrigation process could be replicated in other areas affected by the impacts of climate change which is intensifying extreme