Parametric Assessment of Pre-Monsoon Agricultural Water Scarcity in Bangladesh
1
Department of Water and Environmental Engineering, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, 81310 Johor Bahru, Malaysia
2
Department of Civil Engineering, Seoul National University of Science and Technology, Seoul 01811, Korea
*
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Sustainability 2018, 10(3), 819; https://doi.org/10.3390/su10030819
Received: 19 January 2018 / Revised: 7 March 2018 / Accepted: 12 March 2018 / Published: 15 March 2018
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Impacts of Climate Change on Hydrology, Water Quality and Ecology)
This study assesses the geographical distribution of agricultural water scarcity in Bangladesh in order to streamline the adaptation measures. The agricultural water scarcity was assumed to be a system with five subsystems, namely, groundwater depth, surface water availability, rainfall availability, groundwater salinity for irrigation, and surface water salinity for irrigation. The catastrophe-theory-based multi-criteria decision making approach was used for the estimation of agricultural water scarcity index from five subsystem indices. The obtained results showed that agriculture in about 6.3% of the area of the country is experiencing very high-risk water scarcity, 19.1% with high water scarcity, 37.2% with moderate water risk, and the rest is low or no risk of water scarcity for agriculture. Results showed that the western part of Bangladesh was more vulnerable to agricultural water scarcity. The analysis of the results showed that higher agriculture water scarcity in the northwest region resulted from water unavailability, and in the southwest region it was closely related to poor water quality. The severe areas of water scarcity are very similar to those that are usually regarded as water-scarce. The approach presented in this study can be used for rapid but fair assessment of water scarcity with readily available data, which can be further improved by incorporating other factors related to water scarcity.
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Keywords:
water scarcity; catastrophe theory; standardized precipitation index; salinity; streamflow; groundwater; pre-monsoon; Bangladesh
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MDPI and ACS Style
Ahammed, S.J.; Chung, E.-S.; Shahid, S. Parametric Assessment of Pre-Monsoon Agricultural Water Scarcity in Bangladesh. Sustainability 2018, 10, 819. https://doi.org/10.3390/su10030819
AMA Style
Ahammed SJ, Chung E-S, Shahid S. Parametric Assessment of Pre-Monsoon Agricultural Water Scarcity in Bangladesh. Sustainability. 2018; 10(3):819. https://doi.org/10.3390/su10030819
Chicago/Turabian StyleAhammed, Sumaiya J., Eun-Sung Chung, and Shamsuddin Shahid. 2018. "Parametric Assessment of Pre-Monsoon Agricultural Water Scarcity in Bangladesh" Sustainability 10, no. 3: 819. https://doi.org/10.3390/su10030819
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