THE IMPORTANCE OF MONITORING TO ASSESS THE IMPACT OF CLIMATE CHANGE ON GROUNDWATER RESOURCES IN BANGLADESH

Groundwater is the major source of fresh water across much of the world, but there has been very little study on the impacts of climate change on this precious and finite resource. Rising levels of greenhouse gases are likely to increase the global average surface temperature over the next 100 years, raise sea levels and reduce soil moisture. The amount of water stored in the soil is fundamentally important to agriculture and influences the rate of actual evaporation, groundwater recharge and runoff. Rising sea levels would cause the tidal saltwater wedge to intrude further upstream in rivers, with resulting changes in salinity affecting coastal aquifers. Hence, to face the challenges of climate change-induced impacts in agriculture and water sectors, it is very important to assess the critical evidence of changes in the entire operational spectrum of the hydrologic cycle. Because of its geographic location and low-lying topographic condition, Bangladesh is likely to be in an extreme vulnerable situation; water resources in the low-lying coastal area are at maximum risk. In Bangladesh, a network for monitoring hydrological and hydrogeological data exists mainly to facilitate sustainable management of overall water resources of the country. The necessity is to upgrade, strengthen and expand monitoring technologies to track changes in the system due to climate change. This paper focuses on the development and design of monitoring network to monitor, identify and assess the obvious changes resulted from climate changes in coastal water resources.

Key words: Groundwater, Sea-level rise, coastal salinity and monitoring network.