Impact of the stress of land use change on water resources: A case of Barind region

Abstract

Bangladesh is one of the biggest deltas of the world standing on the “Tropic of Cancer”. Various rivers such as the Padma, the Meghna, the Jamuna flow over this country. The north western part of Bangladesh is of distinctive characteristic which is known to be the Barind tract. Though this region is under developed and neglected, it plays an important role for our economic development. Land is the important natural resource. Land is used in various purposes. This land is being changed every day due to the increase of population. In case of taking the future development plan of any region, it is essential for anyone to have a better concept about land use change so as an under developed and inadvanced region, the Barind region displays the proper landuse change in this dissertation. So it becomes possible to accept more development plan in future. As the study area, four thanas of the Barind up land region have been accepted. The remotely sensed information has been used in this research in determining land use. In conventional system, the determination of land use is as expensive as tardy. Again accuracy is doubtful. It is possible to evaluate landuse change easily and within a short time by remotely sensed information due to repetition. Land use identification and change have been displayed in 1997 and 2006 by Landsat TM satellite image collected from “SPARRSO”, Bangladesh Space Research Organization. During this period the growth of settlement and forest of the study area is manifested as 6.15% and 48.17% respectively. The real development of the Barind region will happen by taking the proper future development plan evaluating land use change and contribute to the economy of the country which is essential for the country.