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    Legal framework on protecting coral reefs of bay of bengal with special references to global practices
    (University Of Rajshahi, 2024-03) Shovon, Khan Md. Arman; Abdul Hannan, Mohammad
    Coral reefs are most diverse and valuable ecosystems on the planet, supporting a wide range of marine biodiversity and providing important benefits to coastal communities. Human activities such as pollution, overfishing, and climate change pose a significant threat to these delicate ecosystems. As a result, many countries around the world have developed legal frameworks to protect their coral reefs and ensure their long-term sustainability. In Bangladesh, corals grow exclusively in Saint Martin Island, located in the north-east region of the Bay of Bengal. These reefs provide essential habitats for a variety of marine species, support local fishing communities, and offer valuable tourism opportunities. However, they are also under threat from a range of human activities, including pollution from land-based sources, overfishing, and the effects of climate change. Coral reefs are known as the "rainforests of the sea" due to their high levels of biodiversity. Coral reefs act as a natural barrier that protects coastlines from the impact of storms, waves, and erosion. They absorb and dissipate the energy of incoming waves, reducing their destructive force on the shorelines. Coral reefs are major attractions for tourists, drawing visitors from around the world to places like Saint Martin Island. Coral reefs play a role in mitigating climate change by acting as carbon sinks. Coral polyps absorb and store carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, helping to reduce the concentration of greenhouse gases. The purpose of this research examines the legal framework in place to protect coral reefs in Bangladesh, with a particular focus on global practices. The research begins by analyzing the current legal protections for coral reefs in Bangladesh and assessing their effectiveness in preserving these ecosystems. This involves an examination of any laws, regulations, or policies that exist at the national or local level, as well as assessing the enforcement mechanisms in place to ensure compliance. In addition to this, the research conducts a comparative analysis of legal frameworks for coral reef protection in other countries or regions. This helps identify potential best practices that could be adapted to the context of Bangladesh and provides insights into the effectiveness of different legal approaches to coral reef protection. The research also considers the role of international agreements or organizations in coral reef protection, such as the Convention on Biological Diversity or the International Coral Reef Initiative. This helps identify opportunities for Bangladesh to collaborate with other countries and organizations in the region and around the world to strengthen its legal framework for coral reef protection. Finally, this research considers the perspectives of various stakeholders in coral reef protection, including government agencies, environmental NGOs, local communities, and businesses that rely on coral reefs. This helps identify potential conflicts or challenges in implementing a legal framework for coral reef protection and provides insights into ways to address these challenges.
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    Morphological Changes in Teesta River Basin: Impact and Adaptation Strategies in the Northern Bangladesh
    (2020) Sultana, Mst. Rebeka; Hassan, Md. Zahidul; Paul, Shitangsu Kumar
    Bangladesh is located at the foothills of the mighty Himalayas and the landscape of the country is formed with the morphological changes of the Ganges- Brahmaputra-Meghna river system. The Teesta is one of the main tributary of the Brahmaputra river which originates from the glaciers of Sikkim, India. The Teesta river flows through the northeastern region of Northern Bangladesh which is considered as the soul of the entire region of Rangpur division. Physiographically, the region is recognized as Teesta Floodplain and designated as an important earthquake zone. Morphological Changes are recurrent incident in the study area. Aggradation and degradation processes of the Teesta river shaped different morphological features in the river basin. Flood, erosion, sediment deposition, channel migration are the main events causing river morphology change. All these fluvial-morphological hazards are responsible for distresses of thousands of people of the Teesta riverine community. The study area lies beneath the plains of the Himalayas and it is the inherent cause for flood and river bank erosion in the Teesta river basin. The unstable river bank and its changing morphology turned the region least developed economy and the area is known as “Monga prone area” (“Monga” refers to seasonal unavailable employment opportunity and reduction of purchasing capacity of essential goods which leads people to become starved) as well as the community is termed as “Mofij”(The poor people of Teesta river basin). Catastrophic flood, ruinous river bank erosion, recurrent channel shifting situation becomes part and parcel of everyday life of the community adjacent to the Teesta river bank. The Teesta riverine people are helpless, homeless and landless particularly the poor‟s are the most affected and vulnerable groups who are loosening their lives, property and livelihoods. Morphological change interrupts their normal life and they turn into poor, poorer and poorest.---
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    Causes and Consequence of Hill Cutting: A Case Study on Chittagong City, Bangladesh
    (University of Rajshahi, 2012) Muhibbullah, Muhammad; Sheikh, M. Abu Hanif
    The Chittagong city of Bangladesh is enriched with the natural beauty as well as with combination of natural resources like hills, forests, rivers and the sea. Especially the hilly landscapes of the city area made it one of the most beautiful cities of the world. For these reasons once the city was known as the "queen of the East". Being the Centre of all kinds of international trade and commerce, the city is also considered as the gateway of the East. Population increase is one of the many continuous events that pushed the authority to expand the city area to incorporate the added population. More over huge industrial development and extension of commercial activities are going to pressurize the city to expand the anthropogenic activities. All these kinds of urban phenomenon are directly affecting the city's unique hilly landscape. In the present study, an attempt has been made to find out the consequential scenarios of hill cutting which ultimately contribute to further understanding of land use change. Besides, the study aimed to identify various causes and related factors of hill cutting, its Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) on local environment and urban socioeconomic life of the city habitant. Moreover, the study is focused on the vulnerability of hillock settlers from landslides and finally to check out the causal relationship between hill cutting and its various causes, factors of hill cutting and landslides in the Chittagong City Corporation area. The present study was carried out based on the combination of primary and secondary data. The available secondary sources like books, journals, reports and publications have been discussed intensively to conceive the ideas related to the study. On the other hand, primary data has also been collected and used according to the requirements of the objectives of the research. In the present research, during the period of September 2009 to February 2012, primary data were collected from various ways i.e., direct field observation, survey, three focus group discussions (FGD), 400 questionnaire surveys, seven experts’ opinion survey and three case study analysis. Various maps for the present study were collected from the different local authorities i.e., Chittagong Development Authority (CDA), Chittagong City Corporation (CCC) and CW ASA for diverse purposes and all the collected base maps were digitized and modified using Arc View 3.3 and Arc GIS 9.1 software. The collected primary and secondary data were imputed, coded and analyzed by MS Word, MS Excel and Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) which are presented in the text by tables, charts, graphs, diagrams, figures and photographs etc. to statistical analysis, Person's product moments correlation and Chi-squire (x:) have been used to test the hypothesis concerning the relationship between the independent and dependent variables. Most of the hilly areas are found in the Pahartali, Khushi, Kotowali, Panchlaish and Baizid Bos Tami Thana in the Chittagong City. It is observed from the study that the city has lost a significant number of hills during last four decades. About 86 hills are found which are categorized as, Category-I, Category II and Category III. The first category Hills are retained intact or less vulnerable while the second Category hills are partially vulnerable and the third Category hills are highly vulnerable............
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    Analysis, Design and Development of a GIS Based Municipal Information System for Rajshahi City Corporation, Bangladesh
    (University of Rajshahi, 2006) Rahman, Md. Mujibor; Ahmed, Raquib
    Functional parameters of city administrators/managers and decision makers include a wide variety of data and information components. The rapid increase in cities' population and socio­economic functions has widened the horizon of the functional parameters and data platform significantly, particularly in the recent time. It is observable that in the early days, the decision makers' style of function was so simple that it required very few types of data. The data of those days were collected, maintained and organized in a very simple and straight forward way. But, now the situation is significantly changed. Impact of the decision whether it is correct or wrong goes to the distant sector of cities setup. In the present situation, it is observed that, while taking a decision, the required data and information is not often readily available. It is not necessarily true that the data is unavailable, rather the data is found to be inaccessible due to its disorganized maintenance. Also, the currently prevailing manual system does not permit error free quick retrieval of the data and quick effective decision-making. The system is also vulnerable to misuse and misappropriation. Now, the need of an efficient data base management system for the use of city administrator as well as for different users is very urgent. The present study aims to develop an efficient database management system that could be optimally utilized and used for proper City management and decision-making. City administration includes involvement of the government, semi-government authorities and the city corporation authority itself. The data of both attribute and spatial type broadly include maps (mainly the cadastral), data related to various facilities and decision support. In fact, decision support data type is very closely related to the decision-maker for proper planning and implementation of decisions on the facilities. It is not realistic to develop a wider approach system in such a limited time by the researcher. So, the research project aims to cover a representative and selective database which is basically purposed to serve the need of a particular section of the city administration i.e., the Rajshahi City Corporation Authority. The Rajshahi City has been chosen since it is a single corporate body where quite a wide range of diversified functions are performed. However, the proposed system may be considered as a model approach. The model can be expanded, tested to cover the entire city administration by including necessary modifications and rectifications. The development of computer and information technology and its successful application in every sector today, are well known and most impressive. In developing countries, urban planning and urban management involve large volumes of geographic data. At present, such information is mainly collected and stored in traditional handwriting documents, making subsequent retrieval very difficult. This system takes any inquiry into urban information base weeks, months or even years rather than minutes or hours, making the day-to-day planning task difficult. Existing system or information based is not able to scope with rapidly growing various municipal functions. A computer can facilitate the creation of a municipal information system that will allow easy storage, updating, retrieval and mapping of a wide range of information related to planning and management of municipal functions. The Geographic Information System (GIS) technology in planning can give planning a broader empirical function and more design flexibility; proper use of automation tools like GIS might improve plan quality considerably. This study proposed the GIS based information system to be integrated in the municipality and made a conceptual model of the municipal database for Rajshahi City Corporation to run its functions effectively and efficiently. The various categories of land related data and how they interact to form a municipal database and described. The conceptual model is justified by applying it to the taxation system of Rajshahi City Corporation and total procedure to develop such a system like this. The successful development of prototype taxation system has proved the applicability of GIS in the municipality. GIS in developing countries like Bangladesh require some special attentions as it is impeded by the lack of appropriate data, technical support, political willingness and above all poverty.
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    Climate Change Induced Economic Transformation, Vulnerability and Adaptation in the Aila (Tropical Cyclone) Susceptible Areas of Bangladesh
    (University of Rajshahi, 2015) Rahman, Md. Mizanoor; Hassan, Md. Zahidul
    Bangladesh is a land of natural calamities. Due to locational disadvantage, especially situated at the tip of the funnel shaped Bay of Bengal on the south and at the foot of Himalayas on the north, every year it experiences a number of different types of natural calamities, such as flood, cyclone, river bank erosion, and drought etc. Literatures indicate that recently, frequency of these events has been increased due to climate change. As per spatial distribution of natural calamities, northern part is prone to flood, western part prone to drought, eastern part basically hilly region prone to flash flood and southern part prone to cyclone. The Southern part, along the coast of Bangladesh is the worst affected area to cyclone and its ultimate effects. Basically, economic sector is the hard hited among all other sectors. Tropical cyclone Aila tore the area in 2009 affected the livelihood of people. The study is an effort to discuss the vulnerability and adaptation strategy of the inhabitants in the light of economic change like occupation, income, expenditure capacity, savings, housing structures, general and agricultural land use etc. that taken place due to Aila. Necessary data and information were collected from both primary and secondary sources for the study, and to analysis and representation of collected data both quantitative and qualitative analysis and mapping techniques have been applied. For statistical analysis SPSS, image processing IRDAS IMAGIN 9.2, and mapping analysis ArcMap-ArcInfo software have been used. The research findings indicate that because of cyclone Aila, economy of the area have been taken down turn. Most of people were engaged with agriculture allied activities, but after Aila agricultural land has been converted into aquaculture. Consequently, people had to change less earning occupation such as daily labour, rickshaw puller, brickfield worker etc. As a result, people had to reduce all sorts of consumptions to cope with the changing situation. GOs and NGOs extended hand through limited opportunity to rebuilding house, dam, road, reforestation but not any income generate activities. So, the livelihood of the people is still vulnerable in terms of economy. This following research recommends to recover the vulnerable situation through creation of income opportunity in the study area. Key words: Cyclone Aila, Economic transformation, Land use change, Vulnerability, Adaptation
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    The Nature of Micro-Finance of Islami Bank & its Impact on Socio-Economic Development of Bangladesh: A Geographical Study
    (University of Rajshahi, 2014) Mollah, Md. Abdul Khaleque; Rahman, M. Abdur
    Microfinance, like the breath of the poor, a broader concept and multidimensional aspects of Microcredit, now a days, has become a worldwide recognized, most popular, much favored, most powerful weapon and a latest panacea for poverty alleviation in the developed, least developed and developing countries of the world from North to South and East to West (European, American, Australian, Asian and African countries, e.g. India, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Malaysia, Indonesia, Bolivia, Nigeria, Nicaragua, Bosnia, Herzegovina, Australia, Canada etc). Bangladesh has pioneered the Microfinance program which is now a well established poverty alleviating program, is being implemented to address different socio-economic activities across the world and now more than 70 (Seventy) countries of the world are practicing the Grameen Bank (GB) model (Majumder, 2002; Sorwar, 2007; Jinan, 2009). Thousands of Microfinance institutions are working in Bangladesh (like GB, BRAC, ASA and PROSHIKA) and these institutions mainly provides interest-based credit and the charged rate of interest is often exorbitantly high and as a result, the rural poor can not come out from the poverty trap. There is much controversy and debate on traditional Microfinance which is sometimes called a “Symbol of Modern Exploitation” and Dr. Yunus (Pioneer of Microfinance) has been regarded as “Blood Sucker of the Poor” by the many critiques and also by the present Government of Bangladesh (native country) for the last few years in their many occasional deliberations, though Bangladesh is called a “Birthplace of Microfinance” and a “Land of NGOs”. Besides, these are hardly any credit facilitating institutions that care about the moral and ethical development of the rural poor although, ethical standards have to be maintained not only in business sector but also in all aspects of life. Business and ethics should be interrelated (Jaim 1986; Ahmed and Shirazi, 2002; Mahamood, 2006; Islam, 2011; Reddy 2012). Keeping all this constraints and idea in view, Islami Bank Bangladesh Limited (shortly & widely known as Islamic Bank in Bangladesh) has launched a Microfinance program named “Rural Development Scheme (RDS)” in 1995 creating a new platform for the poor people of Bangladesh. The prime objective of this program is to uplift the overall socio-economic plight of the rural poor. The program also provides welfare, moral and ethical services to the rural people of Bangladesh based on Islamic values and principles (Rahman, 2009). Presently, the scheme is being implemented through 209 Branches in 17,104 villages under 64 districts covering all 7-divisions of the country (Bangladesh). About 0.82 million group members including 0.53 million investment clients out of which 94% are female are involved in this scheme in 2013 (Annual Report of IBBL, 2013). The program has accumulated total savings of RDS member was Tk.4,377.98 million and investment outstanding was Tk.13,730.92 million among the 5,23,235 clients with 99.70% rate of recovery in 31.12.2013. Therefore, the study on “The Nature of Micro-Finance of Islami Bank & its Impact on Socio- Economic Development of Bangladesh: A Geographical Study” is very much significant from the standpoint of development. An assessment of the achievement of Microfinance Program of IBBL and its impact on socio-economic development including the changes of life style of the rural poor is a prime need. Basically, the main thrust of this study is to examine the nature & extent of Microfinance and to assess the major contribution of Microfinance of IBBL to the Beneficiaries under study. In order to conduct this study, primary data were exclusively collected from the 390 clients covered by 26 Branches of IBBL from 13 Consecutive Zones across the country to bring geographical diversity of the study based on Stratified Random Sampling Approach. Survey was conducted during the period from January 2013 to June 2013 and data were collected using two sets of pretested structured and semi-structured questionnaires (one set for the Microfinance Beneficiaries & another for the Bank Personnels). A great deal of observation was made by the researcher as well during the survey period. The data were analyzed using >2 test, Pearson’s Product Moment of Correlation Co-efficient (Correlation Matrix), Linear Regression Model, Ordinary Least Square (OLS) Model, Logit Model (LM) and also using 5-Points Scale of customer’s satisfaction assessment. In addition, SWOC of the program analyzed based on the important outcomes of the study. This study includes socio-economic, socio-political and sociodemographic profiles of the clients and also includes age, fertility, mortality, education, family size, marital status, total land size, occupation, family members involvement in on-farm and off-farm activities, value of household assets, training received by the clients, disbursement and repayment of investment and extent of utilization of Micro-investment. The results of this study revealed that the Microfinance Program of IBBL has significant and positive impact on socio-economic development & changes of Bangladesh including women empowerment and poverty alleviation. The study also revealed that this program have been able to reduce 54.60% poverty of the asset-less, collateral-less & distressed poor people under study and above 75% customers are satisfied with this program as the study revealed. So, undertaken this study on “The Nature of Micro-Finance of Islami Bank & its Impact on Socio-Economic Development of Bangladesh: A Geographical Study” is justified. Poverty alleviation is not a national issue of Bangladesh, it is a global and challenging issue, which is very much related with the governmental socio-economic related significant aspect which is directly related to the planning of any government and for this reason, in-depth study based on holistic approach is needed in this special field. It is hoped by the researcher that the outcomes of this study will help the researcher who are interested for further study on this new field, geography discipline, finance, banking & economics disciplines for better implication, design & improvement of the program for the national development planning and also to the Microfinance Practitioners including Islamic Microfinance Practitioners of the world and Bangladesh in particular. The interested researchers, especially geographers may further study on the crucial field and new market niche highlighting the regional inequalities and disparities of the program showing the developmental sides.