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In this data paper sea level time series at Socoa (Saint Jean-de-Luz, Southwestern France) is extended in a data archaeology exercise. We have catalogued water level records stored in ledgers and charts, as well as other associated documents (metadata) in thorough research of national and local archives. An extensive effort was made to rescue these documents by archiving them in digital formats. Based on this large set of rescued documents, the Socoa time series is further extended back in time by about 40 years, at hourly (for ledgers) to 5-minutes (for charts) sampling. Analysis of the precise levelling information reveals that the datum of the tide gauge site has been stable. We assessed the consistency of this new century-long time series based on nearby tide gauge data. Although the overall timeseries is generally consistent, siltation is found to be a recurrent problem of the stilling well which impacted some part of the extended data. However, being a high temporal resolution sea level time series spanning more than 100 years, this new dataset will be useful for advancing climate research, particularly the decadal scale variations in the North Atlantic, as well as the storminess and extreme events along the French Basque coastal region.

Bangladesh is situated at the confluence of GBM basins, with 90% of the basin area locating outside the country. Future climate change will lead to intense, prolonged, and frequent floods in Bangladesh. An integrated flood risk assessment that transforms flood risks from transboundary river basins to the local administrative level is necessary. A 1D/2D hydrodynamic model is developed for flood vulnerable Arial Khan River feed by basin-scale hydrologic model for low (RCP2.6) and high (RCP8.5) climate scenarios. An increasing trend in flood depth, duration, and area is observed from the early (2020s) to the end (2080s) of the century for both scenarios. The difference between both RCPs is minimal from the 2020s to 2050s but becomes very pronounced in the 2080s. The depth-duration-area with equal weightage provides better hazard results for the area. Flood risk is assessed using the IPCC AR5 framework incorporating vulnerability and exposure. Some medium-hazard zones fall into high-risk zones due to high exposure and vulnerability to flooding. The areas along the left reach are found more hazard-prone, while the areas on the right side are more risk-prone in the 2080s of RCP8.5. The hazard/risk maps will help policymakers identify priority areas for planning a sustainable flood management strategy. HIGHLIGHTS Flood risk is transferred from transboundary river basins to local administrative levels using a multi-model hydrological-hydrodynamic-statistical modelling system.; High-resolution bias-corrected GCM climate data is used.; IPCC AR5 climate scenarios and risk framework are considered.; Future flood hazard and risks are assessed for Arial Khan River Floodplain for the 2020s, 2050s, and 2080s.; Medium hazard zones might have high flood risk in the future.

Flash flood and related hazards occurred over the Haor (wetland) areas of northeast Bangladesh during 17–18 April 2010. Prediction of this sudden incident is challenging when it happened on the high terrain of Meghalaya Plateau and adjoining Bangladesh. Flash flood event occurred when convective cells assembled into a mesoscale convective system (MCS) over the steep edge of the Plateau. The MCS obtained its extreme point after getting moisture support from the southerly flow of the Bay of Bengal (BoB). This study investigated the synoptic flow patterns and large-scale characteristics of the flash flood-producing storm and its associated tropospheric conditions in northeast Bangladesh using the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model. The model used a 3-nested domain with the horizontal resolution of 27 km, 9 km, and 3 km, respectively. The study revealed that the model underestimated the strength of the flash flood in general in respect of rainfall. The 48-h simulated rainfall was about 152 mm for outer domain-1, about 195 mm for inner domain-2 and about 209 mm for the innermost domain-3 whereas actual rainfall was 223 mm as recorded by Bangladesh Meteorological Department (BMD). The southerly wind was strong at 950 hPa and the westerly wind prevailed at 500 hPa level. The model simulated results show that cloud water mixing ratio was 1.8 mg m−3 and extended vertically up to 17 km. Ice water mixing ratio was 200 mg m−3 and found in between 12 and 20 km, indicating the formation of ice in the upper troposphere. The maximum values of x, y, and z-wind components over Cherrapunji were − 11 ms−1, − 21 ms−1 and − 2.8 ms−1, respectively which indicated the strengthening of the convective system to produce flash flood.

Bangladesh is one of the largest flood-prone deltas of the GBM (Ganges–Brahmaputra–Meghna) basins, and recently, it is categorized as the 7th worst climate-affected country in the world. Future climate change along with economic development, urbanization, and increase in population may worsen this situation manifolds. To cope with future flood situations and lessen probable flood losses, it is essential to develop flood maps of the major flood-prone rivers of Bangladesh considering climate change scenarios. In this study, the flood inundation of the Arial Khan River and its floodplain has been assessed for the predicted climate change scenario of RCP 8.5 (Representative Concentration Pathway 8.5) using open-source mathematical models. A calibrated and validated hydrologic model of GBM basins in SWAT (Soil and Water Assessment Tool) model has been used to estimate the future flow magnitudes at Bahadurabad Transit (Brahmaputra River) and Hardinge Bridge (Ganges River) using extreme emission scenario RCP 8.5. Using the flow magnitude of these two stations as the upstream boundaries, an HEC-RAS 1D model has been set up for the Brahmaputra, Ganges, and Padma rivers for generating future flow magnitude at the offtake of the Arial Khan River. Later, an HEC-RAS 1D-2D coupled model is set up for the Arial Khan River floodplain and flood maps are prepared considering flood depth, duration, and inundation extent. The flood assessment for different projections of RCP 8.5 shows that there is an increasing trend of flood in terms of depth, duration, and inundation from the 2020s to the 2080s. Hence, the floodplain becomes more hazardous by the end of this century. The climate change impact on the projected population for the RCP 8.5 scenario is assessed under SSP5 (Shared Socioeconomic Pathways 5) which indicates that the total flood-affected population will be nearly twice in the 2080s compared to the 2020s. So, future climate change is going to have a dreadful effect on the flood situation of the Arial Khan River floodplain.

The recently reached Paris Agreement at the 21st Conference of the Parties (COP21) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in 2015 includes a goal of pursuing efforts to limit the global warming at 1.5 °C. Following this, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has accepted an invitation by the UNFCCC to create a special report in 2018 which will include the impacts of 1.5 °C global warming on various Earth systems. It is therefore a priority now for the scientific community to quantify these impacts at regional scales. As a contribution to this effort, this study assesses the impacts of 1.5 and 2 °C global warming on the extreme flows and water availability of the Brahmaputra River, which is both an essential source of freshwater for its lowermost-riparian Bangladesh and also an unavoidable source of disastrous floods. Future flows are simulated with the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) and bias-corrected weather data of an ensemble of 11 climate projections from the Coordinated Regional Climate Downscaling Experiment (CORDEX). Results indicate that floods will be more frequent and flood magnitudes greater at 2 °C specific warming level (SWL) than at 1.5 °C SWL. On the contrary, low flows are expected to be less frequent and low flow values to be higher at 2 °C SWL than at 1.5 °C SWL. Water availability will likely be greater at 2 °C SWL than at 1.5 °C SWL from January to August. For the remaining months, water availability will likely be greater at 1.5 °C SWL rather than at 2 °C SWL.

A danger level at a river location is the level above which a flood may cause loss and damage to nearby lives, crops, and homesteads. Currently, in Bangladesh, the danger level is designed ...

This is the first study to assess the possible changes in floods in the Bangladesh part of the densely populated Ganges–Brahmaputra–Meghna (GBM) delta at 1.5°C, 2°C, and 4°C global warming ...

Across the oceans shorelines, monitoring the topography of the intertidal zone is generally challenging. The present study is motivated by the recognized role of the intertidal topography in the near-shore hydrodynamics. We consider the region of Chittagong (northern Bay of Bengal) because of its propensity to powerful cyclone surges and associated inundation hazard. So as to curb the lack of in situ knowledge of intertidal topography, we present an original procedure relying on spaceborne optical imagery. Our method essentially amounts to a water line detection performed at various tidal levels. We apply our procedure to the recent PROBA-V (Project for On-Board Autonomy-Vegetation) multi-spectral imagery mission. The first step of our procedure concerns the shoreline extraction. PROBA-V imagery consists of four bands (Red, Blue, near-infrared - NIR, short-wave infrared - SWIR), which are then combined to generate an artificial red-green-blue (RGB) image. This RGB image is then converted into the hue-saturation-value (HSV) colour space. A simple thresholding is applied to hue and value channels to separate water masses from land masses. This process is applied to several images taken at different water levels (i.e. different parts of the tidal cycle) and the corresponding water lines are inferred. To estimate the altitude level of the water lines, we rely on tidal observations from two gauges located at Chittagong and Cox's Bazar. We operate an ad-hoc extrapolation of the point-wise gauge data to generate a synthetic tidal water level record all along the shoreline. These synthetic tidal heights are then combined with the shorelines to generate the final digital elevation model (DEM). The DEM we generated covers a 40-km long stretch of shoreline around Chittagong city. We assessed this DEM by comparison with two independent data sets based on in situ surveys as well as on Pleiades spaceborne stereoscopy. We conclude that our DEM is accurate within 1 m to 2 m, which is within the error bar of these validation data sets. Our procedure being essentially objective, it is easy to automate, for processing of other imagery satellite, including at high resolution and/or in real time.

The release of high-resolution climatic projections through the Coordinated Regional Climate Downscaling Experiment (CORDEX) initiative provides unique opportunities to assess the risk of h...