| dc.description.abstract | Abstract :
A study was conducted at the Tangua Haor wet land ecosystem under Tahirpur upazila of Sunamganj District in Bangladesh with a view to holistic assessment of the changes in land use and other resources and impacts of those changes on ecosystem services. The study was accomplished through intensive household level survey, focal group discussion, field observations and satellite images analysis. Once this wetland ecosystem provided diversified resources which have been considerable depleted over time. The Haor ecosystem was probably the best place for the fish biodiversity, but some of those are now about to be extinct Frequently found tree species except Koroch (Pongamia pinnata) and Hijal (Barringtonia acutangula) have been decreased noticeably, whereas, swamp forest increased because of strengthening social forestation programs. The diversity index of birds reduced from 2.13 to 1.98 indicating a great loss of bird diversity presumably due to various anthropogenic pressures including shrinking of fish reserves in the Haor. The satellite image analysis showed a great change in land use pattern during 1989-2010. The most important was the transformation of water bodies into mudflat and cropland, and to some extent to swamp forest.
The occurrence of flashf lood increased causing huge damage of crops, communication network and houses. As a result, most of the ecosystem services like fish, food, fuel wood, fiber, drinking water have already been decreased in varying degrees over time. Recognizing these worst situations, the Government of Bangladesh has restricted the free access of the people for harvesting resources and undertaken various programs like promoting swamp forest and creating awareness among the people. These might have positive sign to maintain and obtain better ecosystem services from die Haor in future. | en_US |
