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Groundwater recharge in Titas Upazila in Bangladesh

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Abstract

This paper compares two methods—water balance and water table fluctuation (WTF)—to estimate the groundwater recharge in Titas Upazila in Bangladesh. The study area has a size of 107 km2 and is located in Titas Upazila/Comilla district in Bangladesh. Its climate is classified, according to the Köppen Climate Classification, as tropical with a distinct dry season. Our calculations were done season-wise as long-term monthly means for both the monsoon and non-monsoon season separately. The Priestley-Taylor, Blaney-Criddle, and Adjusted-Pan methods were adopted to calculate the actual evapotranspiration (AET) in the wet season. Alternatively, in dry months, when irrigation is active and the situation is much more complex, different methods were used and tested to estimate the actual evapotranspiration. The deficits and surpluses were also calculated with the help of soil moisture data. For the study area, measured soil moisture data are not available, and satellite data do not allow accurate estimation. Therefore, the soil moisture was derived from a linear regression analysis between measured data from different parts of Bangladesh and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) soil moisture data. Precipitation during the dry months has no contribution to the annual recharge. So it can be concluded, based on these calculations, that to best estimate the recharge, more attention should be given to rainfall during the wet months. The calculated recharge using the water balance method resulted in three different values (984, 459, and 396 mm/a), where the output of the water table fluctuation method was 230 mm/a. However, the groundwater recharge was expected to be less than the calculated values, taking into consideration the runoff from groundwater and the specific yield as a dynamic value in the study area. The estimated value of recharge was within the range defined in recent previous studies on a national scale in Bangladesh.

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Acknowledgments

This work was funded by the Syrian Ministry of Higher Education. The authors are grateful to Dr. Shamsudduha and the Bangladesh Water Development Board (BWDB) for providing the water table monitoring data.

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  1. Department of Hydrogeology, TU Bergakademie Freiberg, Gustav-Zeuner Str. 12, 09599, Freiberg, Germany

    Wael Kanoua & Broder J. Merkel

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  1. Wael Kanoua
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Correspondence to Wael Kanoua.

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Kanoua, W., Merkel, B.J. Groundwater recharge in Titas Upazila in Bangladesh. Arab J Geosci 8, 1361–1371 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12517-014-1305-2

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