Fragmentation analysis to quantify the changes in forest cover after the massive Rohingya refugee influx in Bangladesh

Keywords: Rohingya, Forest, Class, Fragmentation, Patch
Abstract Type: Poster Abstract

Abstract

This study aims to quantify the changes in forest cover in the Rohingya refugee camp, Bangladesh after the highest influx in 2017 from Myanmar. Sentinel 2 images for years 2016 and 2022 were classified with the maximum likelihood classification method into four classes: forest, water, agriculture/open field, and settlement. Landscape structure was analyzed based on seven class-level metrics and two landscape-level metrics. From 2016 to 2022, results showed a decline in total forest areas from 1581 to 737.01 ha, whereas settlement areas increased (3.71 to 63.09 %) dramatically after the establishment of new camps. An increase in the number of patches (804 to 2642), patch density (32.2 to 105.83), and division index (0.81 to 0.99) for the forest class indicates that the forest area became more fragmented in 2022 than 2016. Besides, landscape-level metrics revealed an increase in the number of patches, and patch densities also exhibit a more fragmentated landscape in 2022. Over the last six years, the establishment of refugee camps has noticeably changed the landscape in the study area.