Mr. Ahmmed Zulfiqar Rahaman is working as a Junior Specialist in the Climate Change and Disaster Management Division of the Center for Environmental and Geographic Information Services (CEGIS). He has more than 9 years of experience in the field of water resources engineering, climate change, disaster risk reduction, and spatial planning. Currently, he is working as a Project Leader for the Formulation of the National Adaptation Plan (NAP) in Bangladesh, which is a Green Climate Fund (GCF) project, and as a Research Coordinator for City Level Climate Vulnerabilities and Climate Resilient Infrastructure Assessment in Bangladesh under Livelihoods Improvement for Urban Poor Communities (LIUPC) project. He is also involved as a Disaster Risk Management Expert in Digital Risk Information Portal Development for Bangladesh.
As a hydrologist and climate change specialist by training, he was simultaneously involved in numerous studies at home and abroad relevant to climate change adaptation, risk, vulnerabilities and impact assessment, climate modeling (downscaling), climate change mitigation, flood risk management, disaster risk reduction, development and spatial planning, SDGs, GIS, hydrologic and hydrodynamic modeling. He has very special skills on climate data downscaling, climate risk and vulnerability assessment at regional, national, and city levels. He has extensive experience in using different mathematical modeling tools i.e., SOBEK, HEC-RAS, HEC-HMS, CHE2D, Delft3D, SWAT, SWMM, SDSM, ModFlow, DSSAT, ArcGIS etc to aid climate risk-informed planning and design.
He has been engaged in more than 40 projects so far to give his expert input in numerous areas of interest with multi-tasking capability. He developed a Statistical Downscaling Model for climate scenario generation (temperature and precipitation projections) covering the whole of Bangladesh for both AR4 and AR5 scenarios. He was involved in flood hydrology study for Dhaka city (western part) and future water availability assessment for GBM basins under climate change condition. He was engaged in urban drainage modeling for different parts of Dhaka city. He was actively involved in the preparation of action plan for agriculture in Bangladesh under climate change and sector action plan for the environment and climate change in Bangladesh. He was engaged in formulating the vision document Bangladesh Delta Plan 2100, while concepts of goals and strategies were devised. Further, he is actively involved in the update of climate change scenarios with dynamically downscaled climate data for supporting the implementation of Bangladesh Delta Plan 2100. He worked a long time in impact assessment on haor ecosystem and formulating environment-friendly solutions for flood risk mitigation.
As an international expert, Mr. Rahaman led the preparation of the integrated stormwater management plan for Thimphu City of Bhutan through comprehensive stormwater modeling and formulation of Low Impact Development (LID) measures. Further, he worked in formulating climate resilient flood mitigation measures through hydrological and hydrodynamic modeling for SheteKheri and Aiepoly Streams of Gelephu of Southern Bhutan and climate scenario generation for flood management of Paro valley.
He has worked with various national and international organizations, development partners, NGOs and INGOs like UNDP, GIZ, ADB, World Bank, IMC Worldwide, ICIMOD, IWMI, CCAFS-CGIAR, Deltares, IHE, Wageningen University, etc. Apart from his diversified technical experiences, he has extensive experience in project planning, management and coordination. He has experience in engaging himself as both a national and international trainer and facilitator in climate change and water modeling-related trainings.
Mr. Rahaman pursued his M.Sc in Water Resources Engineering from the Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET). He obtained his B.Sc degree in Water Resources Engineering from the same institution. He has achieved several training and certifications in Natural Resources Management, Mathematical Modeling, Business Communication, Leadership, and Project Management. He is the Co-Founder of the Water Resources Engineering Forum (WRE Forum).
