Land is a very important and scarce resource of Bangladesh. Land use priorities have to strike a balance between competing needs of agriculture, forestry, fisheries, livestock, settlements, and urban and industrial development. This study aimed to explore the existing land use patterns in Bangladesh to understand existing land use dynamics and predict future land uses. Time and population pressure were found to be the major driving forces to determine land use and land use changes in Bangladesh. As the country is slowly advancing towards development urbanization and industrialization are emerging as major conflicting land uses converting very good agricultural land to non-agricultural purposes. To overcome the loss of these lands farmers are trying to increase food production from the remaining lands without considering the productive capacity of the lands. Land tenure was also found to constrain potential yield. This results in a lack of inspiration and encouragement to produce more food from the land. It is now imperative to adopt a land reform programme providing the farmers with ownership rights over the land they cultivate.

Though conflicts continue to arise over land use and land cover changes, the conversion of forest land to cropland or other land uses such as housing and urban development have been on the rise in recent years. Decisions regarding land use and land cover influence climate change as well as various natural processes. While proper changes can minimize the effects and speed of climatic changes, the continued adverse changes may be accelerating the deterioration of the world’s condition. Examining International Land Use Policies, Changes, and Conflicts presents the latest research on the present status of land use and land cover changes throughout the world in order to determine appropriate land use policies that can protect earth’s present and future condition. The findings of the studies investigate the conflicts behind the land tenure and land uses in different countries of the world and examines existing policies and the reasons behind changes in them. Ultimately, the book provides readers with knowledge on how land can be managed in a sustained manner, how landscape models are helpful for predicting and determining future land uses, how land can be managed with the best architectural measures, and how urban forestry is helpful for better environmental management and adapting or mitigating climate change effects. Land users, agriculturalists, urban planners, policymakers, government officials, researchers, academicians, and students looking to improve their understanding of this topic for better use of land in the future will find this book to be an asset to their current research.

The book is immensely beneficial to the readers to have a clear understanding of various CBFM practices prevailing in Bangladesh.Providing a comprehensive and critical analysis of success stories concerning several CBFM practices in different forest areas of Bangladesh, together with their respective strengths and weaknesses, it identifies sharing authority to take decision by the community as one of the main weaknesses. The other main weakness is the lack of beat level authority to coordinate with community for making the process vibrant. The book determines that it is the community patrol group which is most effective under the co-management system, yet the general body and executive committee of the co-management system are composed of different stakeholders, each of which is subject to their own work pressures, and are not as effective as claimed. There is a need to empower communities living in and around forests, and to create ownership of the forests so that they can feel that the forests around them are by the community and for the community.

This book answers key questions about environment, people and their shared future in deltas. It develops a systematic and holistic approach for policy-orientated analysis for the future of these regions. It does so by focusing on ecosystem services in the world’s largest, most populous and most iconic delta region, that of the Ganges-Brahmaputra delta in Bangladesh. The book covers the conceptual basis, research approaches and challenges, while also providing a methodology for integration across multiple disciplines, offering a potential prototype for assessments of deltas worldwide. Ecosystem Services for Well-Being in Deltas analyses changing ecosystem services in deltas; the health and well-being of people reliant on them; the continued central role of agriculture and fishing; and the implications of aquaculture in such environments.The analysis is brought together in an integrated and accessible way to examine the future of the Ganges Brahmaputra delta based on a near decade of research by a team of the world’s leading scientists on deltas and their human and environmental dimensions. This book is essential reading for students and academics within the fields of Environmental Geography, Sustainable Development and Environmental Policy focused on solving the world’s most critical challenges of balancing humans with their environments. This book is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

This text aims to promote a better understanding of land use and land-cover change in the assessment and management of global environmental resources, and to develop a comparative framework for assessing these changes.