STUDY ON SUSTAINABILITY OF GROUNDWATER RESOURCES IN DISTRICT OF

M. Sc. Engineering Thesis

by

Md. Ashraful Islam

DEPARTMENT OF WATER RESOURCES ENGINEERING BANGLADESH UNIVERSITY OF ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY DHAKA-1000

OCTOBER, 2020

STUDY ON SUSTAINABILITY OF GROUNDWATER RESOURCES IN OF BANGLADESH

A Thesis Submitted

by

Md. Ashraful Islam (Roll No. 1015162042P)

In partial Fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of MASTER OF SCIENCE IN WATER RESOURCES ENGINEERING

DEPARTMENT OF WATER RESOURCES ENGINEERING BANGLADESH UNIVERSITY OF ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY DHAKA-1000

OCTOBER, 2020

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

At first, the author acknowledges the blessing of almighty Allah for enabling him to complete the study successfully.

The author is obliged to his thesis supervisor Dr. Umme Kulsum Navera, Professor, Department of Water Resources Engineering, BUET, for her continuous guidance, and caring and affectionate encouragement at every stage of this work.

The author also expresses profound gratitude to his thesis committee member Dr. Anika Yunus, Professor and Head, DWRE, BUET, Dr. Md. Sabbir Mostafa Khan, Professor, DWRE, BUET and external member of thesis committee Dr. A.F.H. Afzal Hossain, Ex-DED (P&D), IWM for their nice and careful guidance and constructive suggestions during final thesis defense which have been immensely contributed to the improvement of this thesis.

The author wishes his sincere gratitude to Mr. Mohammad Salah Uddin, Senior Specialist, Irrigation Management Division, IWM, Ms. Anin Dita Dey, Assistant Engineer, BWDB, Mr. S.M. Sahabuddin, Junior Specialist, IWM and Ms. Swarna Chowdhury, Junior Engineer, IWM for their continuous support and consultations regarding this research work.

The author is grateful to IWM authority for giving supports by providing valuable guidance, necessary data, and permission to use software during this research work.

The author is thankful to all the officials of WRE department and the authority for allowing him to use the WRE library.

The author finally expresses his profound thanks to his parents for supporting and inspiring to conduct the M.Sc. in Water Resources Engineering at BUET.

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ABSTRACT

Bangladesh is predominantly an agricultural country where agriculture sector plays a significant role in accelerating the economic growth of the country. It is therefore important to have a sustainable, environment-friendly and profitable agricultural system in order to ensure long-term food security. Agriculture in Bangladesh is largely dependent on groundwater resources. But this scarce groundwater resources have been decreasing alarmingly in Rajshahi district which is one of the most drought prone districts and driest place of Bangladesh. This situation has threatened the sustainability of agriculture in this area at present as well as in the near future. Over abstraction of groundwater, lack of surface water bodies, low rainfall, high elevation, thick clay layer are the major hindrances in the study area to sustain groundwater resources. As a result, groundwater level in this district is successively falling in each year. In this study it has been strived to sustain this valuable groundwater sources for the sustainable agriculture of this region.

An integrated Surface Water- Groundwater base model from 2012 to 2016 has been developed, calibrated and validated. It has helped to understand current situation of the study area. In order to sustain groundwater resources up to year 2030, it is needed to foresee future condition of groundwater resources from 2017 to 2030. For this reason, there are ten (10) scenarios have been chosen to understand future groundwater condition in the study area by considering different driving forces such as Rainfal