Author(s)

Ummai Habiba, Fouzia Haider, Asif Ishtiaque, Mallik Sezan Mahmud, Arif Masrur

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Landscape of Dhaka city—one of the fastest growing mega cities in the world, is continuously changing due to un-planned urbanization. For example, the wetlands of the city have been shrinking. This study evaluates wetland changes in Dhaka Metropolitan Area (DMA), Bangladesh, between 1978 and 2009. Spatial and temporal dynamics of wetland changes were quantified using four Landsat images, a supervised classi?cation algorithm and the post-classi?cation change detection technique in GIS environment. Accuracy of the Landsat-derived wetland maps ranged from 87% to 92.5%. The analysis revealed that area of wetland and Rivers & Khals in Dhaka city decreased significantly over the last 30 years by 76.67% and 18.72% respectively. This changing trend of wetlands makes the drainage system of Dhaka City vulnerable, creating water logging problems and their consequences. Land filling and encroachment were recognized to be the main reasons for shrinking of the wetlands in the city. Development and alteration of the existing water bodies should consider the natural hydrological conditions.

Wetlands, Remote Sensing, GIS, Dhaka City, Bangladesh, Change Analysis

U. Habiba, F. Haider, A. Ishtiaque, M. Mahmud and A. Masrur, "Remote Sensing & GIS Based Spatio-Temporal Change Analysis of Wetland in Dhaka City, Bangladesh," Journal of Water Resource and Protection, Vol. 3 No. 11, 2011, pp. 781-787. doi: 10.4236/jwarp.2011.311088.