Land-use change and forest cover depletion in Bhawal National Park, Gazipur, Bangladesh from 2005 to 2020

Despite being a historically significant and biologically diverse protected area in Bangladesh, Bhawal National Park (BNP) has been the victim of anthropogenic activities that have challenged its sustainability. This study aims to determine the extent of landscape change and forest area depletion within BNP territory from 2005 to 2020, as land use change is the most visible indicator of human footprint liable to biodiversity loss and land degradation. Landsat satellite images from four sensors are used in this research (MSS, TM, OLI, and TIRS). The complex spatial composition of Bhawal National Park was characterized using a supervised classification technique using ArcMap version 10.8. The findings show a steady decline in the dense and degraded forest classifications, but an increase in the other classed classes. Waterbody, settlement, and chala/baid are found to increase by approximately 105, 369, and 650% respectively from 2005 till 2020, while, the area of dense and degraded forest decreased by about 47 and 51%. Within 16 years, nearly 1000 ha of dense forest cover has been depleted. Comparing the latest classified image of BNP with the relevant map, Bhabanipur, B.K. Bari, and Boupara beat are identified to be the most degraded areas. The conclusion can be drawn from this study that owing to most suppressing factors, namely settlement and chala/baid, a forest cover of nearly 2284 ha has been depleted from this national park which is almost 49% of the total possessed forest cover in 2005.