What is the land use pattern in Bangladesh?

Answer 1

The pressure of population on the land and its resources is a major factor affecting sustainable development in Bangladesh. Whether by overexploitation or mismanagement, changes in land use, and therefore in land cover, are taking place at an unprecedented rate. The increased awareness of environmental issues and the need to strive for sustainable management of Natural Resources has focussed attention on the need to map and monitor changes in land cover at different temporal and spatial scales.Its aim is to map major land cover types at one time (1985-86) and to analyse changes in land cover types with respect to this baseline in 1992-93. It also aims to identify hot spot areas in the country where significant changes in land cover have taken place and where further studies should be undertaken at greater temporal and spatial scales.Once encapsuled with dense forests, Bangladesh is now almost devoid of forests as a result of overexploitation and mismanagement except in selected areas of the country. The remaining forests are situated mainly in remote areas in the east, southeast and south-west of the country. A small tract of evergreen and semi-evergreen forest in the Chittagong area, deciduous forest ('sal forest') in the central part of the country and mangrove forest in the Sundarban area are the major relic forest types. The mangrove forest in Sundarban is the largest tract of mangrove forest in the world.

Several estimates are available for the total area of forest cover in Bangladesh. According to the official figure, the remaining forests in Bangladesh was about 20 159.86 sq. km. (14 per cent) in 1989 (Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics 1989). One conservative estimate of Collins et al. (1991) indicates however that the country has only about 6 per cent of the original forest cover left.

The principal cause of deforestation is expansion of agricultural land after clearcutting of forest areas especially in the areas with the highest population density. Shifting cultivation is however another cause of deforestation especially in the hilly region in the south-east of the country (BARC 1987). Population and economic pressures are two prominent factors leading to clearing of forests.

Almost all cultivable land of the country is used for agriculture, the main economic mainstay of the country. Multiple cropping is practiced. Rice and jute are two principal crops. Aus (deep water rice) and Aman (broadcast and transplanted) are the two major rice varieties.