Mir Fahim Shaunak’s research while affiliated with Center for Environmental and Geographic Information Services and other places

Due to rapid urbanization, people destroy core environmental elements such as water, land for habitation purpose without thinking about adverse environmental consequences. Modhumoti Model Town is such type of housing project which is situated at a river zone. Bangladesh Environmental Lawyers Association (Bela) filed a writ against the project and after three times (in 2004, 2005 and 2013) assembling the case, the High Court declared the project was illegal and should restore the wetland. Overruling the law, the development procedure is still constant which destroys the natural wetland and its surroundings. The study aims to assess the extent of water and land degradation due to human settlements using Geographic Information System (GIS) and Remote Sensing (RS) approaches. Modhumoti Model Town is selected as the study area which is situated at Amin Bazar, Savar. Landsat TM 4-5 and OLI 8 have been used to calculate several indices such before and after verdicts. Results indicate that NDVI, SAVI, NDWI were decreasing where NDBI was increasing sequentially. Now, both semi-pucca and pucca settlements are around 240 in amount and the project area completely blocks the free flow of water from river. Furthermore, the analysis captures the consequence of law violence and shows that imposing verdict is not enough to protect the environment if it would not be strictly maintained.