A spatiotemporal analysis of land use and land coverage changes caused by shipwrecking activities: Using GIS to compare the expansion of Alang and Sitakundu shipwrecking yards between 2010 and 2021

Abstract

Shipbreaking which was previously run by industrialized nations had emerged as one of the leading industries in Bangladesh and India due to the high demand for recyclable and reusable materials, as well as the availability of cheap labour and lax environmental restrictions. The ship scrapping (breaking) and recycling business (SBRI) in Bangladesh and India can recycle 90–95 % weight of scrapped ships. Shipbreaking industries also provide job opportunities, however, the poorly carried out operations of this industry expose its employees to a variety of hazardous pollutants and have the ability to leave a massively disproportionate environmental imprint. Furthermore, the operational units (shipbreaking yards, office buildings, storage rooms, waste management facilities) of this industry and the secondary businesses (rolling and re-rolling steel mills, recycling stores etc) that have sprung up as a result of shipbreaking are replacing a large portion of the land coverage of the whole shipbreaking area in these two countries. As a result, this research explores the use of GIS and remote sensing technology in the detection of land use and land cover change (LULCC) of these two shipbreaking industries to assess the growth of the shipbreaking yards and quantify the LULCC from 2010 to 2021 that has occurred due to the expansion of these two shipbreaking capitals. The findings of this study revealed that, while the net increase of the Alang-Sosiya Shipbreaking Yards (along the coastline) is modest (0.8km), the overall land coverage of the area has undergone massive change, with plant coverage being replaced by built-up area and barren land (from 34.31% to 23.60%) due to the large-scale operations of the shipbreaking industry (shipbreaking and other secondary businesses originated from shipbreaking). However, the satellite imageries revealed a different scenario for the Sitakundu Shipbreaking Industry as the growth of the shipbreaking yards (along the coastline) increased from 12km to 18km, but the overall land coverage condition improved, and plant coverage was seen to regenerate between 2010 and 2021. Such change could be attributed to the declining urbanization in the region or the advantages of the small-scale mangrove regeneration efforts in the coastal site of the Sitakundu region. With an average accuracy of 88.5% for classified images of both locations, this research established the use of GIS-RS technology in determining changes in land use and land coverage in an increasingly urbanized world. To protect the shipbreaking area's residual plant coverage, the land-based security and monitoring system must be reinforced and illicit land leasing and conversion of environmentally vulnerable mangroves into shipbreaking yards must be prohibited. Furthermore, to reduce the negative impact of shipbreaking, existing national policies must be enforced under international shipbreaking conventions, as the regulations do contain appropriate outlines (particularly the Hong Kong Convention), but the main issue is the lack of a robust and efficient inspection and enforcement system, which is frequently overlooked