The rainfall and discharge trends of Surma River area in North-eastern part of Bangladesh: an approach for understanding the impacts of climatic change

Abstract Background Bangladesh is known as a deltaic plain at the confluence of the Ganges, Brahmaputra and Meghna River Basins (GBM) and their tributaries. The rainfall pattern of northeastern part of Bangladesh is changing along with the discharge pattern of Surma River. In this study, the changes in precipitation of Sylhet and river discharge of Surma River and the relationship between them were investigated. The study emphasizes on the influence of climatic component (rainfall) on the hydro-characteristics of river. The time series data from 1973 to 2016 (44 years) of rainfall and river discharge of Surma River were collected and analyzed. The basic hydro-characteristics, including arithmetic mean, variability, skewness, distribution type, persistence, dependence, trend, and correlation have been studied through various statistical methods, including coefficient of variation, Mann–Kendall test, Sen’s slope estimator, and Pearson’s coefficient of correlation. Results The rainfall trend shows moderate year-to year variability although there is an indication of declining rainfall trend. As with rainfall, the river discharges show moderate year to year variations that are related to the variability in rainfall. The decreasing rate is 1.53 mm for rainfall and − 1.51 m3/s for discharge (Mann–Kendall test). The rainfall was increasing from 1973 to 1989 but after 1990 it is reduced. The mean discharge of Surma River was 845.99 M3/s. The rainfall started to fall down extremely from 1990 to 2016 but before that the rainfall showed an increasing trend with modest slope. It is possible that the declining trend in rainfall observed in Sylhet is a result of climate change which causes the declining of Surma River discharge. Over these 44 years analysis, the rainfall and discharge shows a very decreasing trend and both rainfall and discharge were highly related for most of the time. Conclusion In conclusion, it can be noticed that the rainfall in Sylhet has been reduced from the time 1973 to 2016 which directly affects the discharge of Surma River. Consequently, this result might be the indication about the effect of climatic change in the local as well as global level.