3rd International Conference on the Status and Future oft he World’s Large Rivers

18-21 April 2017, New Delhi, India

SIMULATION OF FLOW FIELD ALONG THE

JAMUNA RIVER IN BANGLADESH

Binata Roy1, Shampa2, Md. Maruf Dustegir1, Md. Rashedul Islam1, Shammi Haque1,
Md. Munsur Rahman3, Anisul Haque3
1
Lecturer, Institute Of Water and Flood Management, BUET, Dhaka, Bangladesh
2
PhD Student, Kyoto University, Kyoto, Japan
3
Professor, Institute of Water and Flood Management, BUET, Dhaka, Bangladesh

The Jamuna is one of the largest sand-bed braided rivers in the world, which is the lower reach of the
Brahmaputra River that enters Bangladesh at Noonkhawa. It is the most dynamic river of Bangladesh with
high bed and bank erosion rates. Shuvogacha under the Kazipur Upazila of Sirajgonj district is situated at
about 25 km upstream of the Bangabandhu Bridge which is one of the most erosion prone areas along the
right bank of this river. To protect this area from bank erosion, three RCC spurs were constructed in the year
of 1999-2000. But after the failure of the one of the RCC spurs in 2001, the condition worsened. Although
the rest of the spurs are still working, they failed to resist the entire erosion of the bank. The primary reason
of the failure of the spurs is due to the high flow velocity near the spur locations. Hence, the present study
aims to investigate the flow field of the river near the spur location by developing a 2D morphodynamic
model using Delft3D for the year of 2011 and 2012. The selected study reach is 276 km long from the
entrance of Jamuna River in Bangladesh to the confluence with the Ganges River. After the calibration and
validation with water level at several locations from upstream to downstream, the model is at first applied
without any spur. Then, the model is later simulated with the actual dimension and orientation of the spurs
to capture the real field phenomena. The detail velocity field along with consecutive erosion deposition,
planform changes and spatial distribution of the bars near the spurs have been assessed from the model output
to find out the causes of spur failure. The study shows that the average velocity near the spurs is much higher
than the rest of the channel, approximately 2 times the average velocity (0.75 m/s) of Jamuna River. The
velocity field further depicts that the spurs are not capable enough in deflecting the flow away from the
bankline as they should. Furthermore, morphology study reveals that the average bed scour rate at Kazipur is
approximately 0.50 m/year with maximum bed scour rate of approximately 5 m/year near the spur location,
which is quite threatening to the sustainability of the bed and bankline of the Jamuna River near Kazipur
upazilla.