Impact of Inundation Inconsistency on Temperature in Seasonally Inundated Floodplain Wetland

Hydrological consistency analysis in wetland area was widely explored but how does it control water surface temperature was not explored yet, but this analysis is ecologically very crucial. The present study aimed to analyze how inundation consistency gradient in seasonally inundated wetland could control thermal character of the wetland tractWetland tract taking lower catchment of Punarbhaba River Basin as an example. For inundation consistency analysis, water presence frequencyWater presence frequency (WPF) and for water surface temperature analysis, land surface temperatureLand surface temperature (LST) method was applied. For linking them linear regression and ordinary least squareOrdinary least square (OLS) regression were employed. The entire study period (1990–2022) was subdivided into three phases and analysis was done based on these three phases. Result clearly revealed that over the phases wetland area was substantially reduced (60%) and existing wetland area was witnessed increasing inundation inconsistencyInundation inconsistency gradient in wetland. In phase 1, 47.26% wetland area was characterized by high WPF but in phase 3, no area was detected under this class indicating growing inundation inconsistency. Maximum, minimum and mean water surface temperature was enhanced by 6, 17 and 4.63 °C from phases 1 to 3. Temperature was found quite high in the shallower part of the wetland outskirt. Linear regression between WPF and temperature revealed statistically significant control of WPF on reducing temperature in all the phases. OLS also exhibited same over 73% sample wetland sites. So, it can be inferred that growing inundation inconsistency may increase threat to the thermal ambience of the aquatic ecosystem and neighbouring human ecosystem.