1 IGCESH2016 Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, Johor Bahru, Malaysia 15-17 August 2016 ASSESSMENT OF AGRICULTURAL WATER SCARCITY IN BANGLADESH USING ENTROPY THEORY S.J. Ahammed 1 *, S. Shahid 2 , M.R.M. Haniffah 3 , T. Ismail 4 , M. Mohsenipour 5 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 Department of Hydraulics and Hydrology, Faculty of Civil Engineering, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, Johor Bahru, Malaysia (E-mail: star.dust227@gmail.com, sshahid@utm.my, mridza@utm.my, tarmiziismail@utm.my, mortezamohsenipour@gmail.com) ABSTRACT Water scarcity is mainly the lacking of satisfactory level of water for fulfilling water utilization of any area that includes stress, shortage or deficits, and crisis of water. Water scarcity in Bangladesh is also increasing following the global trend. Specially, water scarcity has turned to be a bottleneck in agricultural development in many parts of the country. The objective of present study is to assess the spatial distribution of agricultural water scarcity in Bangladesh using entropy weighting method. Five factors selected based on availability of data namely, frequency of pre-monsoon droughts, surface water availability, surface water quality, groundwater level, and groundwater quality and literature review were used to assess the agricultural water scarcity in Bangladesh. For this purpose, data related to monthly rainfall, groundwater level, groundwater quality, and surface water availability were collected from different sources. Results revealed that the western and the southwestern parts of Bangladesh are more vulnerable to agricultural water scarcity. The water stress entropy index was found in the range of 0.29 to 0.74 for southwest Bangladesh, which indicates severe water stress in the region. Analysis of data revealed high salinity is the major cause agricultural water scarcity in southwest Bangladesh. Keywords: water scarcity, geographical information system, droughts, salinity, groundwater depth INTRODUCTION Water scarcity is mainly the lacking of satisfactory level of water for fulfilling water utilization of any area that includes stress, shortage or deficits, and crisis of water. Ever-increasing water demand in recent decades, resulting from population growth, economic development and climate change, has caused water scarcity in many countries across the world [1]. It has been reported that approximately 2.4 billion people, or 36% of the global population, are already experiencing water scarcity [2]. The global water demand will continue to grow with population growth and economic development [3]. It has been projected that by 2050 the world’s population will reach more than 9.6 billion people [4], and food production will have to increase by 70% in order to feed the growing population, which will cause a vast expansion of irrigated agriculture globally [5]. Consequently, there will be a rapid growth in agricultural activities and consequently, agricultural water demand across the world [6,7]. It has been predicted that global water demand will increase by 55% by 2050, and that the greatest increases will be in the emerging economies and developing countries that are already under water stress [8,9]. As potential sources of water are limited, the growing