Application of Regional Climate Model Simulation and Flow Data for Assessing Future Water Availability in the River Jamuna

Among the multifarious dimensions of climate change, alteration of precipitation pattern with associated changes in runoff and subsurface flow, rise in surface temperature and consequent increase in evaporation rate are sure to have direct impact on the future water availability of major river systems in Bangladesh like the Jamuna. The characteristic trends of historical river-discharge data, as developed in this paper, indicate that the river Jamuna has undergone a generous amount of amplification of flow through the years. Subsequently, this increase can be attributed to the effects of climate change mainly in terms of extensive precipitation on the river-catchments and rise of water level by inflating snow-melt at its source as a result of the global warming. However, the main objective of this paper is to develop and analyze the characteristic trends of average monthly flow of the river Jamuna in Bangladesh using historical records, and to correlate the hydro-meteorological water-balance as calculated from the climate model projections of precipitation and evaporation, which would therefore aid the assessment of climate change impact on the future possible flow condition and water availability in the Jamuna River system.