Showing papers by "Faisal Hossain published in 2021"

Quality assessment of freshwaters from a coastal city of southern Bangladesh: Irrigation feasibility and preliminary health risks appraisal

Abstract: The present study was conducted for the first time to appraise the water quality, irrigation feasibility, and human health risk of surface water in heavy industrial and urban establishments from a coastal city of Bangladesh. Surface water samples were collected from the hilly terrain comprised of Plio-Pleistocene to Miocene-sediments throughout the study area. The ranges of pH were 5.35 to 7.58, EC values were 42.3 to 2440 µS cm−1, and turbidity were 2.53 to 1570 NTU, respectively. The overall physicochemical condition of water samples revealed that the water was unsuitable and also unsafe for domestic use. A bias-free systematic sampling and analyzed parameters invoke that surface water quality is deteriorated by Cr (52.2), Mn (532), Fe (4797), Mg (31445), K (29213), Co (69.0), Ni (39.5), and Pb (22.4 µg L−1) contamination and make the surface water unsuitable for drinking, cooking, fisheries, and other purposes. Anthropogenic activities (e.g., domestic, industrial, agricultural, etc.) intensified by climate change-induced sea-level rise are mainly responsible for the source apportionment of metal pollution in the study region. However, the surface waters of the studied sites are allowed to use for irrigations, except for Karnaphuli river due to high alkali hazards. Furthermore, the existence of toxic metal-induced non-carcinogenic and carcinogenic risks does not allow inhabitants to use this water for household works.

Towards a global Reservoir Assessment Tool for predicting hydrologic impacts and operating patterns of existing and planned reservoirs

Abstract: Dam construction in developing nations is on the rise. Monitoring these dams is essential to understanding downstream hydrologic impacts and for better planning and management of water resources. Satellite observations and advancements in information technology now present a unique opportunity to overcome the traditional limitations of reservoir monitoring. In this study, a global reservoir monitoring framework was developed as an online tool for near real-time monitoring and impact analysis of existing and planned reservoirs based on publicly available and global satellite observations. The framework used a mass balance approach to monitor 1598 reservoirs in South America, Africa, and Southeast Asia. Simulated streamflow of the developed tool was validated in 25 river basins against a multidecadal record of in-situ discharge. The simulated storage change was validated against in-situ data from 77 reservoirs. The framework was able to capture reservoir state realistically for more than 75% of these reservoirs. At most in-situ gaging locations, the reservoir tool was able to capture streamflow with a correlation of more than 0.9 and a normalized root mean square error of 50% or less. The tool can now be used to study existing or planned reservoirs for short and long-term decision making and policy analysis.

Satellite observations reveal thirteen years of reservoir filling strategies, operating rules, and hydrological alterations in the Upper Mekong River Basin

Abstract: . The current situation in the Lancang–Mekong River Basin is emblematic of the issues faced by many transboundary basins around the world: riparian countries prioritize national water-energy policies and provide limited information on how major infrastructures are operated. In turn, such infrastructures and their management become a source of controversy. Here, we turn our attention to the Upper Mekong River, or Lancang, where a system of eleven mainstream dams controls about 55 % of the annual flow to Northern Thailand and Laos. Yet, assessing their actual impact is a challenging task because of the chronic lack of data on reservoir storage and dam release decisions. To overcome this challenge, we focus on the ten largest reservoirs and leverage satellite observations to infer 13-year time series of monthly storage variations. Specifically, we use area-storage curves (derived from a Digital Elevation Model) and time series of water surface area, which we estimate from Landsat images through a novel algorithm that removes the effects of clouds and other disturbances. We also use satellite radar altimetry data (Jason) to validate the results obtained from satellite imagery. Our results describe the evolution of the hydropower system and highlight the pivotal role played by Xiaowan and Nuozhadu reservoirs, which make up to ~85 % of the total system's storage in the Lancang River Basin. We show that these two reservoirs were filled in only two years, and that their operations did not change in response to the drought that occurred in the region in 2019–2020. Deciphering these operating strategies could help enrich existing monitoring tools and hydrological models, thereby supporting riparian countries in the design of more cooperative water-energy policies.

The Value of Long-Term Streamflow Forecasts in Adaptive Reservoir Operation: The Case of the High Aswan Dam in the Transboundary Nile River Basin

Abstract: Transboundary river basins are experiencing extensive dam development that challenges future water management, especially for downstream nations. Thus, adapting the operation of existing reservoirs is indispensable to cope with alterations in flow regime. We proposed a Forecast-Based Adaptive Reservoir Operation (FARO) framework to evaluate the use of long-term climate forecasts in improving real-time reservoir operations. The FARO approach was applied to the High Aswan Dam (HAD) in the Nile River basin. Monthly precipitation and temperature forecasts at up to 12 months of lead time are used from a suite of eight North American Multi-Model Ensemble (NMME) models. The value of NMME-based forecasts to reservoir operations was compared with perfect and climatology-based forecasts over an optimization horizon of 10 years from 1993 to 2002. Our results indicated that the forecast horizon for HAD operation ranges between 5 and 12 months lead time at low- and high-demand scenarios, respectively, beyond which the forecast information no longer improves the release decision. The forecast value to HAD operation is more pronounced in the months following the flooding season (October–December). During these months, the skill of streamflow forecasts using NMME forcings outperforms the climatology-based forecasts. When considering the operation of upstream Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD), using streamflow forecasts minimally helps to maintain current target objectives of HAD operation and therefore result in higher operation costs as opposed to current conditions without GERD. Our study underlined the importance of deriving a new adaptive operating policy for HAD to improve the value of available forecasts while considering GERD filling and operation phases.

Monitoring Variations in Lake Water Storage with Satellite Imagery and Citizen Science

Abstract: Despite lakes being a key part of the global water cycle and a crucial water resource, there is limited understanding of whether regional or lake-specific factors control water storage variations in small lakes. Here, we study groups of small, unregulated lakes in North Carolina, Washington, Illinois, and Wisconsin, USA using lake level measurements gathered by citizen scientists and lake surface area measurements from optical satellite imagery. We show the lake level measurements to be highly accurate when compared to automated gauges (mean absolute error = 1.6 cm). We compare variations in lake water storage between pairs of lakes within these four states. On average, water storage variations in lake pairs across all study regions are moderately positively correlated (ρ = 0.49) with substantial spread in the degree of correlation. The distance between lake pairs and the extent to which their changes in volume are correlated show a weak but statistically significant negative relationship. Our results indicate that, on regional scales, distance is not a primary factor governing lake water storage patterns, which suggests that other, perhaps lakes-specific, factors must also play important roles.

Environmental and Social Risks to Biodiversity and Ecosystem Health—A Bottom-Up, Resource-Focused Assessment Framework

Abstract: Risks from human intervention in the climate system are raising concerns with respect to individual species and ecosystem health and resiliency. A dominant approach uses global climate models to predict changes in climate in the coming decades and then to downscale this information to assess impacts to plant communities, animal habitats, agricultural and urban ecosystems, and other parts of the Earth’s life system. To achieve robust assessments of the threats to these systems in this top-down, outcome vulnerability approach, however, requires skillful prediction, and representation of changes in regional and local climate processes, which has not yet been satisfactorily achieved. Moreover, threats to biodiversity and ecosystem function, such as from invasive species, are in general, not adequately included in the assessments. We discuss a complementary assessment framework that builds on a bottom-up vulnerability concept that requires the determination of the major human and natural forcings on the environment including extreme events, and the interactions between these forcings. After these forcings and interactions are identified, then the relative risks of each issue can be compared with other risks or forcings in order to adopt optimal mitigation/adaptation strategies. This framework is a more inclusive way of assessing risks, including climate variability and longer-term natural and anthropogenic-driven change, than the outcome vulnerability approach which is mainly based on multi-decadal global and regional climate model predictions. We therefore conclude that the top-down approach alone is outmoded as it is inadequate for robustly assessing risks to biodiversity and ecosystem function. In contrast the bottom-up, integrative approach is feasible and much more in line with the needs of the assessment and conservation community. A key message of our paper is to emphasize the need to consider coupled feedbacks since the Earth is a dynamically interactive system. This should be done not just in the model structure, but also in its application and subsequent analyses. We recognize that the community is moving toward that goal and we urge an accelerated pace.

Evaluating the hydropower potential of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam

Abstract: One of the largest hydropower projects in Africa is the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD), which is currently under construction in the Upper Blue Nile (UBN) basin in Ethiopia. The GERD has been billed as a hydropower project that will significantly improve electricity supply in Ethiopia and neighboring countries with a total capacity of 5150 MW. This paper evaluates the hydrological potential of the UBN basin for meeting the declared hydropower production design from the GERD. Our investigation indicated that the hydrology of the UBN can sustain the inflow to the GERD that would produce 13 629 GWh per annum (capacity factor = 0.30). Investigations further revealed that the GERD operation in the current design configuration will likely result in eight (out of 14) idle turbines every year. Our study also demonstrated that current GERD capacity (5150 MW) is more reasonable than previous designs (e.g., 6000 and 6450 MW).

Integrating Gravimetry Data With Thermal Infra Red Data From Satellites to Improve Efficiency of Operational Irrigation Advisory in South Asia

Abstract: Integrating Gravimetry Data with Thermal Infra-red Data from Satellites to Improve Efficiency of Operational Irrigation Advisory in South Asia

Developing a Baseline Characterization of River Bathymetry and Time-Varying Height for Chindwin River in Myanmar Using SRTM and Landsat Data

Abstract: In this study, a method was developed for the baseline characterization of river bathymetry and time-varying heights using globally available datasets from the Shuttle Radar Topography Miss...