Groundwater Level Depletion Assessment of Dhaka City Using MODFLOW

Anika Mahzabin; Md. Jakir Hossain; Siam Alam; Shams E Shifat; Anika Yunus

American Journal of Water Resources. 2023, 11(1), 28-40
DOI: 10.12691/AJWR-11-1-4

Original Research

Groundwater Level Depletion Assessment of Dhaka City Using MODFLOW

Anika Mahzabin^1,, Md. Jakir Hossain², Siam Alam¹, Shams E Shifat³ and Anika Yunus⁴

¹Centre for Environmental & Geographical Information Services, Dhaka, Bangladesh

²Directorate of Groundwater Hydrology, Bangladesh Water Development Board, Dhaka, Bangladesh

³Department of Civil Engineering, Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology, Dhaka, Bangladesh

⁴Department of Water Resources Engineering, Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology, Dhaka, Bangladesh

Pub. Date: May 14, 2023

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Cite this paper

Anika Mahzabin, Md. Jakir Hossain, Siam Alam, Shams E Shifat and Anika Yunus. Groundwater Level Depletion Assessment of Dhaka City Using MODFLOW. American Journal of Water Resources. 2023; 11(1):28-40. doi: 10.12691/AJWR-11-1-4

Abstract

The primary source of drinking water for the approximately 21 million residents of the Dhaka metropolitan area is groundwater. Rapid development and overuse of groundwater resources from the subsurface aquifer are to blame for the alarming rate of groundwater level depletion in the Dhaka metropolitan area. A quick assessment is needed to predict the spatiotemporal distribution of groundwater levels in the future in order to manage this limited resource sustainably. Using the numerical model code MODFLOW, this work makes an attempt to simulate groundwater flow in subsurface aquifer systems. The Dhaka Water Supply and Sewerage Authority's bore log data was used to map the groundwater aquifer networks of the city of Dhaka (DWASA). The data gathered from the Bangladesh Water Development Board was used to assign the model boundary and hydrogeological parameters. All grid cells inside the model recharge boundary are considered to have the same recharge distribution. The model's results show that excessive groundwater extraction from aquifer systems, rather than a decline in recharge rates throughout the corresponding years, is the primary cause of the downward trend in groundwater level inside the city region. If the rate of pumping continues the same as it was in 2020, the depletion of groundwater level may get worse in the following years as a result of the city of Dhaka's growing population and development.

Keywords

Dhaka metropolitan area, groundwater level depletion, MODFLOW, aquifer, population

Copyright

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

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