The green conundrum: Navigating the paradox of buffer farmlands of a mangrove forest landscape

Prasun Mukherjee, Tanmoy Das, Subhasish Das and Asis Mazumdar

Land Use Policy, 2024, vol. 146, issue C

Abstract: Farmlands, positioned at the interface of mangrove forestlands and urban centers, serve as critical buffer zones. These areas play a pivotal role in determining the ecological fate of mangrove forests, acting as a cushion against mangrove deforestation. This study aims to study the spatiotemporal data from Landsat imagery whilst considering the geo-political and scocio-economic transformations of such a buffer region adjoining the Sunderban mangrove forest to understand the surreptitious reason for such expansive nature of the farmlands. Results indicate that these buffer farmlands are in a constant tug-of-war between the urban and forest ecosystems. The built up area adjoining the cities increases at a much higher pace than the areas adjoining the forest lands. Quite contrary to the popular belief, it is seen that the majority of cropland expansion in the mangrove adjoining regions arises from the use of fallow land rather than the clearing of vegetation. The study shows that the changes need to be addressed through the government’s policies and a restructure of governance is required. In policymaking, the collaborative action of scientists, governments, and local people should be involved. The lack of sustainable development and targeted improvement can increase the threat and risk nearby the mangrove farmlands.

Keywords: Tidal backwater irrigation; Sunderban mangrove forests; ANOVA; Regression analysis; Socio-economics; Spatio-temporal Landsat data (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0264837724002588
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:lauspo:v:146:y:2024:i:c:s0264837724002588

DOI: 10.1016/j.landusepol.2024.107305

Access Statistics for this article

Land Use Policy is currently edited by Jaap Zevenbergen

More articles in Land Use Policy from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Joice Jiang ().