Assessment of Land Cover Changes from Protected Forest Areas of Satchari National Park in Bangladesh and Implications for Conservation

Abstract

Satchari National Park is one of the most biodiverse forest in Bangladesh and home of many endangered flora and fauna. 206 tons of CO2 per hectare is sequestrated in this national park every year which helps to mitigate climate issues. As people living near the area are dependent on this forest, degradation has become a regular phenomenon destroying the forest biodiversity by altering its forest cover. So, it is important to map land cover quickly and accurately for the sustainable management of Satchari National Park. The main objective of this study was to obtain information on land cover change using remote sensing data. Combination of unsupervised NDVI classification and supervised classification using maximum likelihood is followed in this study to find out land cover map. The analysis showed that the land cover is gradually converting from one land use type to another. Dense forest becoming degraded forest or bare land. Although it was slowed down by the establishment of ‘National Park’ on the study site, forecasting shows that it is not enough to mitigate forest degradation. Legal steps and proper management strategies should be taken to mitigate causes of degradation such as illegal felling.