Title: Temporal and spatial variation of groundwater level in Mymensingh district, Bangladesh

Authors: Md. Manjurul Hussain; Sheikh Hefzul Bari; Mohammed Ehsanul Tarif; Md. Tauhid Ur Rahman; Muhammad Azizul Hoque

Addresses: Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Shahjalal University of Science and Technology, Sylhet, Bangladesh ' Department of Civil Engineering, Leading University, Sylhet, Bangladesh ' Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Shahjalal University of Science and Technology, Sylhet, Bangladesh ' Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Shahjalal University of Science and Technology, Sylhet, Bangladesh ' Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Shahjalal University of Science and Technology, Sylhet, Bangladesh

Abstract: In this paper, spatiotemporal analysis of groundwater level fluctuations of 32 piezometric wells using geostatistical analysis was done for Mymensingh district. A total nine years of weekly ground water level data were used for the analysis. Geostatistical analysis was performed using ordinary kriging and empirical Bayesian kriging (EBK) methods. The semivariogram models called spherical, exponential and Gaussian model were fitted with the experimental semivariogram in ordinary kriging while semivariogram fitting is automatic in EBK. Model performances were tested using root mean square standardised error (RMSSE), root mean square error (RMSE) and average standard error (ASE). The cross-validation results indicate that EBK performs better comparing to ordinary kriging in representing the spatial groundwater level fluctuation in the study area. The geostatistical analysis result shows that the Phulbaria, Trisal, Muktagachha, Bhaluka, Gafargaon and Mymensingh Sadar Upazila is comparatively more vulnerable than other parts of the district.

Keywords: geostatistical analysis; groundwater levels; ordinary kriging; empirical Bayesian kriging; EBK; Bangladesh; temporal variation; spatial variation; piezometric wells; modelling; water levels; hydrology.

DOI: 10.1504/IJHST.2016.075587

International Journal of Hydrology Science and Technology, 2016 Vol.6 No.2, pp.188 - 197

Received: 25 Sep 2015
Accepted: 20 Nov 2015
Published online: 28 Mar 2016 *

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