Members’ Publication

Water body extraction is an important task in evaluation of water resources disciplines of developing country especially in Bangladesh. In Rajshahi metropolis, there were 729 ponds and canals in 2002, but the figure had been fallen to 393 in 2013 because of indiscriminate land filling and unplanned urbanization. Therefore, the aim of the study is to explore the association of decadal changing pattern of decreasing surface water body in 30 years (1996, 2006 and 2016) of Rajshahi City Corporation (RCC) area and to identify the persistence where water bodies are filled up because of rapid urbanization activities. Decadal Land Cover and Water Body Maps of the study area have been prepared for 1996, 2006 and 2016 using Landsat satellite images. A change detection technique which gives automatic water body extraction and mapping of the location, scarcity and morphometric of water body has been applied to extract the water body changes by integrating Remote Sensing (RS) and Geographic Information System (GIS) applications. The association has been established by the locations of rapid urbanization areas. The study finds that most of the water bodies are filled up due to rapid urbanization where people used to fill up the surface water bodies for residential and commercial settlements which affects climate change, biological diversity and human wellbeing. The study describe a national problem named urbanization which increases rapidly and damages our biodiversity and climate. The findings will help the concerned authority who can use this information for further planning and strategy making policy about better management of water bodies in future.