Vol.: (0123456789) 1 3 Environ Monit Assess (2023) 195:201 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10661-022-10764-8 Land‑use change and forest cover depletion in Bhawal National Park, Gazipur, Bangladesh from 2005 to 2020 Mahfuz Ur Rahman  · Tanmoy Dey · Jayanta Biswas Received: 16 May 2022 / Accepted: 12 November 2022 © The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 increase by approximately 105, 369, and 650% respec- tively from 2005 till 2020, while, the area of dense and degraded forest decreased by about 47 and 51%. Within 16 years, nearly 1000 ha of dense forest cover has been depleted. Comparing the latest classifed image of BNP with the relevant map, Bhabanipur, B.K. Bari, and Boupara beat are identifed to be the most degraded areas. The conclusion can be drawn from this study that owing to most suppressing fac- tors, namely settlement and chala/baid, a forest cover of nearly 2284 ha has been depleted from this national park which is almost 49% of the total possessed forest cover in 2005. Keywords Bhawal National Park · LULC · Forest cover · Remote sensing Introduction Despite providing enormous environmental and com- mercial values, collective loss and deterioration of natural resources, as well as biodiversity, have been observed to be triggered at an alarming rate in recent years (Hegde, 2001; WRI, 2020). Between 2010 and 2015, the loss of world forest areas was nearly 3.3 mil- lion hectares; recently, 23% of the productivity of the global terrestrial area is also found to be decreased due to pollinator loss (UN, 2019). Deforestation was esti- mated to be nearly 10 million hectares per year between 2015 and 2020, resulting in a forest area reduction of Abstract Despite being a historically signifcant and biologically diverse protected area in Bangla- desh, Bhawal National Park (BNP) has been the vic- tim of anthropogenic activities that have challenged its sustainability. This study aims to determine the extent of landscape change and forest area depletion within BNP territory from 2005 to 2020, as land use change is the most visible indicator of human foot- print liable to biodiversity loss and land degradation. Landsat satellite images from four sensors are used in this research (MSS, TM, OLI, and TIRS). The com- plex spatial composition of Bhawal National Park was characterized using a supervised classifcation tech- nique using ArcMap version 10.8. The fndings show a steady decline in the dense and degraded forest clas- sifcations, but an increase in the other classed classes. Waterbody, settlement, and chala/baid are found to M. U. Rahman (*)  Forestry and Wood Technology Discipline, Khulna University, Khulna, Bangladesh e-mail: mahfuzrahman150529@gmail.com T. Dey  Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, Bangladesh Forest Research Institute, Barishal, Bangladesh e-mail: tanmoyfwt100518@gmail.com J. Biswas  Urban and Rural Planning Discipline, Khulna University, Khulna, Bangladesh e-mail: jayantakurp17@gmail.com