A Study on Climate Variability and Groundwater Drought in Naogaon District Using Remote Sensing

Climate change is the progenitor of all complexities which are more significant, intricate and unpredictable than any other environmental issues. Lowering annual rainfall and diminishing surface water bodies are two indicators of climate change which have significant impact on groundwater depletion. The northwestern part of Bangladesh is suffering from water scarcity and heading toward a foreseeable groundwater drought situation. The objective of the study is to find how climate change accelerates groundwater depletion. The study analyzes rainfall data and trend of diminishing surface water bodies in Porsha and Sapahar Upazila of Naogaon District. Surface water bodies have been analyzed using IsoCluster Unsupervised Image Classification in ArcMap 10.6. Rainfall data have been collected from Bangladesh Meteorological Department (BMD) and Bangladesh Water Development Board (BWDB). Then magnitude, frequency and pattern of annual rainfall have been analyzed. Further, geographically weighted regression (GWR) analysis was done for the decreasing trend of annual rainfall and surface water bodies to predict future groundwater table (GWT) depletion. When the predicted GWT data converges with the observed GWT data; it is apparent that climate change accelerates rapid lowering of GWT. The study result showed the convergence of predicted data and observed data on GWT where climate change plays an unseen pivotal role.