Abstract
Climate change, comprising of changes in precipitation patterns, higher temperatures and sea level rises, increases the likelihood of future flooding in the Betna River basin, Bangladesh. Hydrodynamic modelling was performed to simulate the present and future water level and discharge for different scenarios using bias-corrected, downscaled data from two general circulation models. The modelling results indicated that, compared to the baseline year (2014–2015), the water level is expected to increase by 11–16% by the 2040s and 14–23% by the 2090s, and the monsoon daily maximum discharge is expected to increase by up to 13% by the 2040s and 21% by the 2090s. Sea level rise is mostly responsible for the increase in water level. The duration of water level exceedance of the established danger threshold and extreme discharge events can increase by up to half a month by the 2040s and above one month by the 2090s. The combined influence of the increased water level and discharge has the potential to cause major floods in the Betna River basin. The results of our study increase the knowledge base on climate change influence on water level and discharge at a local scale. This is valuable for water managers in flood-risk mitigation and water management.
Highlights
Floods often cause devastating effects on human life and properties worldwide
The results revealed an increase in air temperature, and increased monsoon precipitation and discharge, which are in good agreement with other studies of this region [9,12,13,29]
The results revealed that sea level rise (SLR) had a stronger impact on the water level compared to the impact of upstream discharge change
Summary
Floods often cause devastating effects on human life and properties worldwide. Climate change increases floods because of change in precipitation patterns and sea level rise (SLR) [1]. Bangladesh is extremely vulnerable to the impacts of climate change because of its low and flat terrain, high population density, high poverty levels, and the reliance of many livelihoods on climate-sensitive sectors [2]. The Betna River basin in the southwest of Bangladesh has been experiencing both fluvial flooding due to extreme precipitation during the monsoon and storm surge flooding due to cyclones originating from the Bay of Bengal. Floods hit this area almost every year of the last decade, causing loss of life and economic damage [3]. The impact of flooding could well become more severe, due to the low lying areas, high population density, inadequate flood protection infrastructure, low level of social development, and high dependence on agriculture [4]
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