Wetland habitat vulnerability of lower Punarbhaba river basin of the uplifted Barind region of Indo-Bangladesh

Abstract

In Barind tract of Indo-Bangladesh, wetlands hammering, alteration of permanent wetlands habitat into seasonal, seasonal into only land, etc. are extremely precise. The aim of this work is to delineate wetlands habitat vulnerability of the wetlands in Punarbhaba river basin for pre and post dam state by taking into consideration of seven influencing indicators of Pressure-State-Response model. Analytical hierarchy process (AHP)-based fuzzy logic model has been employed for producing wetlands habitat vulnerability for both pre (up to1992) and post dam (1993-present). From the produced models, out of total wetland area (222.72 km²), 9.55% and 6.47% area are under high and very high wetland habitat vulnerable zones in pre dam phases but those vulnerable area are boosted to 27.25% and 28.13% in post dam period (total wetland area: 114.72 km²). The leading vectors for growing wetlands habitat vulnerability are amplification of agriculture land, shrinking of active flood plain, lessening of flood frequency.

Keywords:

• Wetland degradation
• fuzzy logic
• wetland habitat vulnerability
• active flood plain and extensions of agricultural land

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to extend hearty acknowledgement to the North Bengal Planning division, Malda, West Bengal; Gauge station authority of Haripur and Bamangola; Irrigation and Waterways Department for providing us flow data for Punarbhaba and Tangan rivers and also thankful to USGS for providing Landsat imageries and SRTM DEM. They are extremely thankful to Susanta Mahato, Jayanta Mondal, Tamal Kanti Saha, Pankaj Sinha and Manob Das for their assistance during field survey.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.