INTEGRATED USE OF REMOTE SENSING, GIS AND GPS TECHNOLOGY FOR MONITORING THE ENVIRONMENTAL PROBLEM OF SHYAMNAGAR

Abstract. Cultivation of shrimp mostly in unplanned way has been considered as one of the major environmental disasters of Shamnagar. Villagers surrounding the rivers are mainly involved with fish (shrimp) cultivation. So, fertile agriculture land has been converted to shrimp cultivation. Conversion of agriculture land to other usage is a common but acute problem for land resources of the country like Bangladesh. Conventional methods for collecting this information are relatively costly and time consuming. Contrarily, Remote Sensing satellite observation with its unique capability to provide cost-effective support in compiling the latest information about the natural resource. Remote sensing, in conjunction with GIS, has been widely applied and been recognized as a powerful and effective tool in detecting land use and land cover changes. RapidEye, Landsat8 images were used to identify land use and land cover of the area during the period 2008 and 2015. Google images were used to identify the micro-level land use features of the same period. Multi-spectral classifications using unsupervised and supervised classification were done and results have been compared based on the field investigation. The study reveals that during the period 2008 to 2015 agricultural practice has been reduced from 35 % to 21 % and shrimp cultivation area increased from 38 % to 50 %. Due to the impact of high salinity and salt water intrusion caused by natural disaster, agricultural activities is reduced and farmers have been converted to other practices, as a result shrimp farming is gaining popularity in the area.