World Water Day 2014: Water and Energy

Dr. Zahidul Islam and Sarfaraz Alam

Like every other years, the 22 March of 2014 is being observed as the World Water Day, focusing on the importance of freshwater and advocating for the sustainable management of freshwater resources. Following a recommendation from the United Nations (UN) Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) in 1992, the UN General Assembly designated 22 March 1993 as the first World Water Day. Since then, each year World Water Day is observed, highlighting a specific aspect of freshwater. So far different aspects like Caring for Our Water Resources, Women and Water, Water for Thirsty Cities, Groundwater, Everyone lives Downstream, Water for the 21st Century, Water for Health, Water for Development, Water for the Future, Water and Disaster, Water and Culture, Water Scarcity, Sanitation, Transboundary Waters, Water Quality, Water for Cities, Water and Food Security have been highlighted. In the meantime water decade (1995-2005) was celebrated with a title “Water and Life” and 2013 was declared as the “International Year of Water Cooperation”. Emphasising the interdependency of water and energy, this year World Water Day slogan is “Water and Energy”. This article is an effort to demonstrate the inter-dependency between water and energy in global context as well as in Bangladesh perspective.

National Water Security Index of Bangladesh: What does it indicate?

Dr. Zahidul Islam and Ahmmed Zulfiqar Rahaman

Recently Asian Development Bank (ADB) has published the Asian Water Development Outlook 2013, a compilation of water resources development indicators in Asia and Pacific region. The entire report can be downloaded from THIS link. The status of water resources development in this region has been presented as the National Water Security Index (NWSI), and comparison has been made among different countries. National Water Security Index of a country is composed of five separate indices. The values of individual indices ranges from 1 to 5 and the average value represents the NWSI. The five individual indices are: Household Water Security Index, Economic Water Security Index, Urban Water Security Index, Environmental Water Security Index and Resilience to Water Related Disasters Index. The scope of this article is to evaluate the overall water security status of Bangladesh based on this report.

Review of the Bangladesh Water Act 2013

Dr. Md. Khalequzzaman and Dr. Zahidul Islam

The government of Bangladesh has recently published the Water Act 2013 (henceforth termed as the Act) through a gazette notification.  The Act is based on the National Water Policy, and is designed for integrated development, management, extraction, distribution, usage, protection and conservation of water resources in the country. The Act consists of 7 chapters, 47 sections and 136 sub-sections.  While the first chapter defines the terms and vocabularies used in the Act, the remaining chapters address various aspects of the Act.  We have taken a critical look at the Act and provided a review of the same.  In general, the Act has provided the right framework for better management of water resources in the country. 

The World Water Day 2013: Bangladesh Perspectives

Dr. Zahidul Islam and Dr. Md. Khalequzzaman 

Like every other years, the 22 March of 2013 is being observed as the World Water Day, focusing on the importance of freshwater and advocating for the sustainable management of freshwater resources. Following a recommendation from the United Nations (UN) Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) in 1992, the UN General Assembly designated 22 March 1993 as the first World Water Day. Since then, each year World Water Day is observed, highlighting a specific aspect of freshwater. So far different aspects like Caring for Our Water Resources, Women and Water, Water for Thirsty Cities, Groundwater, Everyone lives Downstream, Water for the 21st Century, Water for Health, Water for Development, Water for the Future, Water and Disaster, Water and Culture, Water Scarcity, Sanitation, Transboundary Waters, Water Quality, Water for Cities, Water and Food Security have been highlighted. This year, the focus is even broader, as the year 2013 has been declared as the International Year of Water Cooperation by the UN. It is evident that growing population and rapid urbanization is putting pressure on the freshwater resources of the world. In order to manage this precious resource, cooperation is essential between different users for the betterment of the environment and ecosystem. Hence, the slogan for the year 2013 World Water Day, “Water, Water Everywhere, Only If We Share” draws attention to the need for cooperation in water resources management. In this article we focus on the importance of cooperation in water management in context of Bangladesh. 

Ganges water treaty: Dead or just dying?

Zahidul Islam and Md. Khalequzzaman

Although India and Bangladesh share 57 trans-boundary rivers, the Ganges Treaty signed in 1996 is the only water sharing treaty between these two neighbouring countries. Proper implementation of the treaty is important for both Bangladesh and India. Water-flow and sediments carried by the Ganges River are essential for economic activities for more than 40 million people living in the southwestern coastal region in Bangladesh, and for environmental functioning of the Bengal delta, including the survival of the Sunderbans – a World Heritage site. The Ganges’s watershed encompasses Nepal, India and Bangladesh. From an integrated water resources management perspective, all stakeholders in co-riparian countries need to make plan for optimal uses of water resources while safeguarding the environment and ecosystems that the rivers support. However, watershed-scale planning and management schemes do not exist for any shared river in South Asia. 

Hydraulic Modelling of Mackenzie River at Ft. Province, NWT, Canada

Hydrologic Engineering Centers River Analysis System (HEC-RAS) is a very powerful tool for 1 Dimensional Hydraulic Modeling. The program was developed by the US Department of Defense, Army Corps of Engineers in order to manage the rivers, harbors, and other public works. HECRAS has found wide acceptance by many others since its public release in 1995 (Wikipedia). Here I tried to explain how I modelled a river subjected to ice condition. Though the study is very much related for cold region engineering, I still believe this will help a lot to improve our understanding in Hydraulic Modeling using HECRAS. 

 

Figure 1: Mackenzie River (circle showing the study reach)

Source :http://www.aquatic.uoguelph.ca/rivers/mac1.htm

SRTM: An Excellent DEM Data Source

Digital Elevation Model or DEM is the digital representation of  earth surface. For instance, if we divide a 100 meter by 100 meter area into 100 by 100 square grids or 101X101 grid points,  we'll end up 10000 squares. Now, if we know the elevation of those 101X101 ( or 10201) grid points with respect to a datum we can easily develop a DEM of that area. The Figure 1 shows a DEM of an 100 m by 100 m area generated by MATLAB.

Figure 1. A MATLAB generated DEM

Determination of Flood Extent Using Remote Sensing

Introduction

Flood is a relatively high flow of water that overtops the natural and artificial banks in any of the reaches of a stream. When banks are overtopped, water spreads over flood plain and generally causes problem for inhabitants, crops and vegetation. During extreme flood event it is important to determine quickly the extent of flooding and landuse under water (Wang et al, 2002). Flood map can be applied to develop comprehensive relief effort immediately after flooding. There are varieties of issues and uncertainties involved in flood mapping. Remotely senses data can be used to develop flood map in an efficient and effective way. In this paper the different techniques of flood mapping using active and passive remote sensing system applied by different researchers will be presented with their specific application. Finally a comparison of different methods will be made.