Vol.:(0123456789) 1 3 Earth Systems and Environment https://doi.org/10.1007/s41748-018-0078-2 ORIGINAL ARTICLE Morphological Dynamics of the Jamuna River in Kazipur Subdistrict M. Nazrul Islam 1  · Rathindra Nath Biswas 1  · Sharmin Rima Shanta 1  · Raihanul Islam 2  · Md. Jakariya 3 Received: 16 February 2018 / Accepted: 8 November 2018 © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2018 Abstract This study identifes and evaluates the morphologically changing trend and process–response mechanisms of Jamuna River. The study considers the bank erosion, bank-line shifting, rate of erosion, accretion, sedimentation, course changing direc- tions, changes in river width, fuvial landform dynamics, and foodplain features. The lower Brahmaputra–Jamuna River (named Jamuna River) at Kazipur subdistrict, Sirajganj district in Bangladesh are the study area. Multispectral Landsat satel- lite imageries of dry seasons were used for time series analyses of time periods (1972–2016) to interpret the chronological changes of morphology. The outcomes obtained from the analyse, support the historical westward channel shifting of the river, alluvial material properties, explicate fuvial processes, discharge anabranch instability, erosion, and morphological responses. Keywords Braided river · Morphological dynamics · Sedimentation · Erosion and accretion · Sinuosity ratio 1 Introduction The Brahmaputra–Jamuna River is one of the largest braided river systems in the world (Islam et al. 2017). The river is also extremely unstable (Bhuiyan et al. 2010). Every year it erodes thousand hectares of foodplain (Sarker, et al. 2014). Morphological changes and bank shifting were observed in the agricultural croplands and settlements (Abdulkareem et al. 2018a; Hazarika et al. 2015). Planform development and lateral shifting change the land use pattern, agricultural activities, and people’s rehabilitation capacities. This study assesses the current morphological trend, channel flow direction, changes in river width, channel geometry, rate of erosion, accretion, bank-line shifting, and fnally mor- phological dynamics of Jamuna River in Kazipur subdis- trict. The research scopes also cover the fuvial landforms, channel geometry, foodplain morphology, fuvial morpho- dynamics, river basin management, hydrology, and fnally socio-economic conditions as well. The study area has been chosen in small-scale due to the lack of sufcient time, satel- lite image coverage, proper manpower, and fnancial support. 2 Study Area This study concentrates on the lower Brahmaputra–Jamuna foodplain drained by multichannel dynamic Jamuna River at Kazipur subdistrict, Sirajganj district in Bangladesh (Fig. 1). Tectonic infuence, tributary switching,and catastrophic food all are being considered as the avulsion of this river (Bristow 1987; Hossain and Paul 2018). 3 Materials and Methods In this research work, GIS and RS were used to delineate morphological features for proper identifcation of morpho- logical changes. Dry season Landsat images of 1972 (MSS), 1988 (TM), 2002 (ETM + ), and 2016 ((ETM + ), with WGS (World Geodetic System) projection were downloaded from (USGS) (earthexplorer.usgs.gov) to delineate morphological dynamics. * Raihanul Islam rabby.ad.ju@gmail.com 1 Department of Geography and Environment, Jahangirnagar University, Savar, Dhaka, Bangladesh 2 Department of Business Administration, Central Women’s University, 6, Hatkhola Road, Dhaka 1203, Bangladesh 3 Department of Environmental Science and Management, North South University, Bashundhara, Dhaka, Bangladesh