In this report, we describe the development of a simple, lumped, monthly water balance model to assess the impact of climate change and agricultural development scenarios on water balances in the districts of northwest Bangladesh. The model inputs include monthly rain, monthly actual evapotranspiration derived from a daily crop water use model, together with parameters that determine the partitioning of rainfall into evapotranspiration, infiltration and drainage, and runoff.
The calibration of the model with historical groundwater levels (using historical rainfall and modelled historical evapotranspiration) is generally good in all districts except Nawabganj, where the calibration is poor. This might be because Nawabganj is an area partly of river floodplain and partly of the higher ground of the Barind Tract; it may be that a lumped model which treats the area as a single unit cannot capture the overall behaviour.