| dc.description.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 | en_US |
