Abstract
The main purpose of this study is to describe the spatio-temporal analysis of land use and land cover status and to identify land cover changes, especially of deforestation and degradation in evergreen, semi-evergreen rainforests of Chittagong Hill Tracts from 1988-2018 by using Landsat 8 OLI-TIRS and Landsat 5 TM satellite imagery. The ArcGIS v10.5 and ERDAS Imagine v15 software were used to process satellite imageries and assess quantitative data for land-use change assessment of this study area. The study revealed that the area of forest land and water body decreased by 17.92% and 5.43% respectively from 1988-2018. On the other hand, the area of agricultural land, barren land and settlement increased by 45.66%, 312.08% and 240.01% respectively. If the present condition remains constant, the projection of future land-use/ land cover changes for the next 15 years will predict that more than 7.37% dense forest (2253.83 ha) land will be decreased and 19.60% agricultural will be converted to other land uses. This study suggests that proper policy should be adopted urgently to conserve residual forest coverage and restore it to regain its past appearance.
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