Three sectors, namely, public, private, and individual households, are responsible for rapid land use/cover change in Dhaka. Earlier land developments were mainly done by ad hoc planning by the public sector mainly onto agricultural lands. Currently, a tremendous increase of private sectors, particularly real state agencies, is noticeable in Dhaka, developing both wetlands and agricultural lands without considering the environmental consequences. In contrast, the individual household is largely responsible to develop the fringe zone (Islam 1996; 2005). Land conversion by individual for speculative purposes has greatly been influencing the development of suburb areas as observed during field visits. Furthermore, poor coordination among the organizations is equally accountable to the quick loss of
natural covers. For instance, approximately 6,000 ha of Dhaka-Narayangonj-Demra (DND) project were originally retained for assisting the agricultural production, which is being converted to residential land apace since 1990s without any approval from the government (Islam 1996). This unauthorized land conversion is clearly implying the weakness of the involvement of multiple legislative agencies. Hence, unregulated expansion in Dhaka Metropolitan is underway, and leading to disarrayed growth. The nature of land cover changes revealed that the built-up and bare soil/landfill categories have been increased significantly (Table 2). For instance, in 1960 built-up areas were 4,625 ha (hectares) which increased gradually to 5,550 ha in 1975, indicating only 20% growth within 15 years interval. Figure 3
shows the trends of land use/cover change during 1960–2005. This figure can be used to discern the incredible pressure of urbanization on natural land covers in Dhaka Metropolitan. Table 2 demonstrates