Study on land cover changes in the vicintiy of Purbachal new town and JhilMil residential area

Abstract

Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh, is one of the fastest growing megacities in the world. The ever-growing population has led Dhaka to an unplanned urban expansion. Due to the scarcity of land, urban expansions and unprecedented land conversions are taking place outside Dhaka North and South City Corporation areas at the costs such as habitat destruction, loss of arable land, wet land, water body, flood flow zones and natural vegetation cover. In many cases the location of government declared land development and infrastructure building projects are triggering the conversions of land to different uses. In this research, areas in the vicinity of two well renowned land development projects by RAJUK, namely Purbachal New Town (PNT) and Jhilmil Residential Area (JRA), have been considered as study areas. Since RAJUK, the regulatory agency of government, undertook these projects, the precious lands of the surrounding areas are being converted by the real estate developers. The areas surrounding PNT were predominantly rural in nature and were designated as high value agriculture land, forest area and water retention zone. On the other hand, the areas surrounding JRA located in Keraniganj was actually a part of South -Western flood flow zone. But no sooner RAJUK officially declared undertaking these projects there, land covers changed rapidly and lands continued to be grabbed for the last 20 years. About 40 developers are involved in the conversion of land in both eastern and western fringe areas. This research conducted a spatiotemporal analysis of the study areas from 1992 to 2017 at 5 years interval to investigate land cover change in four major land cover classes as, Vegetation cover, Water cover, Bare soil cover and Built-up cover. Thus, the chronology of changes and the factors responsible for the changes has been sought to investigate. This study has found different type of land cover changes because of different reasons in the both study areas. Both projects have been initiated violating DMDP Structure plan 1995-2015. There was a clear demarcation of conserving these lands as high value agriculture land, forest area, wet land and flood flow zones in DMDP. Although RAJUK has now declared these areas as Growth Management Area in Dhaka Structure plan 2016-2035, its plans and guidelines have failed to protect these lands from indiscriminate conversion. The factors behind the land cover changes are revealed by identifying the ‘latent themes’ in the contents of FGD, KII and Experts Opinion through Thematic Analysis. Contents of relevant plans, policies have been examined to identify the ‘latent’ themes in their contents facilitating land cover changes. Based on these ‘latent’ theme factors, lack of proper active land use plans or guide lines, weak land regulation act and laws, and inactive and inefficient law enforcing agencies are identified as responsible for the changes in the both study areas. The ultimate aim of this study is to support the decision maker people and authorities of conventional land use planning practice in Bangladesh to stop unplanned land cover change. It highlights the land cover change trend as an essential and fundamental part, so it should keep in head before any kinds of land development plan formulation. So, no further urban sprawls, renewals or enhancement will not come up without prior initiative to protect project surrounding areas. In the end, this study aspires to bridge the research gap among the researchers about conventional land use planning practice in Bangladesh.