Modeling of Forest Ecosystem Degradation Due to Anthropogenic Stress: The Case of Rohingya Influx into the Cox’s Bazar–Teknaf Peninsula of Bangladesh

Abstract

Overdependence and cumulative anthropogenic stresses have caused world forests to decrease at an unprecedented rate, especially in Southeast Asia. The Cox’s Bazar–Teknaf Peninsula of Bangladesh is not an exception and follows the global deforestation trend. Despite being one of the country’s richest forest ecosystems with multiple wildlife sanctuaries, reserve forests, and influential wildlife habitats, the peninsula is now providing shelter for nearly one million Rohingya refugees. With the global deforestation trend coupled with excessive anthropogenic stresses from the Rohingya population, the forests in the peninsula are continuously deteriorating in terms of quality and integrity. In response to deforestation, the government invested in conservation efforts through afforestation and restoration programs, although the peninsula faced a refugee crisis in August 2017. The impact of this sudden increase in population on the forest ecosystem is large and has raised questions and contradictions between the government’s conservation efforts and the humanitarian response. Relocation of the refugees seems to be a lengthy process and the forest ecosystem integrity needs to be preserved; therefore, the degree of stresses, level of impacts, and pattern of deforestation are crucial information for forest conservation and protection strategies. However, there are a lack of quantitative analyses on how the forest ecosystem is deteriorating and what future results would be in both space and time. In this study, the impact of the sudden humanitarian crisis (i.e., Rohingya refugees) as anthropogenic stress in Cox’s Bazar–Teknaf peninsula has been spatiotemporally modeled and assessed using Sentinel-2 satellite imagery and other collateral data. Using the density and accessibility of the Rohingya population along with the land cover and other physiographic data, a multi-criteria evaluation (MCE) technique was applied through the Markov cellular automata technique to model the forest vegetation status. The impact of deforestation differs in cost due to variability of the forest vegetation covers. The study, therefore, developed and adopted three indices for assessment of the forest ecosystem based on the variability and weight of the forest cover loss. The spatial severity of impact (SSI) index revealed that out of 5415 ha of total degraded forest lands, 650 ha area would have the highest cost from 2017 to 2027. In the case of the ecosystem integrity (EI) index, a rapid decline in ecosystem integrity in the peninsula was observed as the integrity value fell to 1190 ha (2019) from 1340 ha (2017). The integrity is expected to further decline to 740 ha by 2027, if the stress persists in a similar fashion. Finally, the findings of ecosystem integrity depletion (EID) elucidated areas of 540 and 544 hectares that had a severe EID score of (−5) between 2017 and 2019 and 2017 and 2027, respectively. The displacement and refugee crisis is a recurrent world event that, in many cases, compromises the integrity and quality of natural space. Therefore, the findings of this study are expected to have significant global and regional implications to help managers and policymakers of forest ecosystems make decisions that have minimal or no impact to facilitate humanitarian response.

Spatio-temporal variation of land use and land cover changes and their impact on land surface temperature: A case of Kutupalong Refugee Camp, Bangladesh

“…The migration of Rohingyas into the area has exacerbated land cover fragmentation (UNDP & UN WOMEN, 2018), which has resulted in degradation of ecosystem, and services such as biomass depletion ( Hasan et al., 2021 ). Acknowledging the LULC change pattern is important for assessing potential impacts on the local environment and ecosystems, which can assist planners, ecologists, administrators, and policymakers in managing, and formulating sustainable plans to overcome negative effects on the environment and ecosystem along with the developmen activities (Islam et al., 2007; Islam et al., 2021 ; Islam et al., 2021 , 2021 ).…”

“…Between 2017 and 2018 over 8498.40 ha of vegetation covers and 687.97 ha of agricultural land converted to the built-up area ( Rahman et al., 2019 ). Hasan et al. (2021) focused on determining how LST varies with respect to vegetation change and stated that aside from forest lands, ground biomass and carbon stock suffered significant losses throughout the study period.…”

“…Between 2017 and 2018 over 8498.40 ha of vegetation covers and 687.97 ha of agricultural land converted to the built-up area (Rahman et al, 2019). Hasan et al (2021) focused on determining how LST varies with respect to vegetation change and stated that aside from forest lands, ground biomass and carbon stock suffered significant losses throughout the study period. Also, most of the studies focused on vegetation change over the year due to the Rohingya crisis, however they neglected the impact of rapid expansion of human settlement and its impact on the surrounding thermal environment (Islam et al, 2019;Islam et al, 2022a,b).…”

Review on Present Status of Rohingya People in Bangladesh: Effects on Social, Economic, Environment and Wildlife Habitat

“…The topsoil in the areas close to the camps has been severely exposed and has been completely cleared of vegetation as a result of the prolonged fuelwood harvesting activity. Additionally, the soil has been uncovered, and the remaining plants, notably tree roots, have been cut down [18,65]. Rapid vegetation loss and anthropogenic weathering are removing and washing away the topsoil, which will eventually disturb the plant nutrition of the forest ecosystem [67].…”

“…Since many of these temporary relocation camps were built in or close to wild elephant corridors, which have already resulted in several incidents of conflict between Rohingya and elephants, the rapid degradation of forested land will cause ecological issues and disturb wildlife habitats in the area [16]. Recently, Hasan et al ( 2021) used a multi-criteria evaluation to estimate the status of the forest vegetation and looked into and identified a very noteworthy observation in the Rohingya camp area [18]. According to the spatial severity of impact (SSI) index, out of the 5415 ha of total degraded forest areas, 650 ha would have the highest cost from 2017 to 2027 [18].…”