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Scenario-based land change modelling in the Indian Sundarban delta: an exploratory analysis of plausible alternative regional futures

  • Special Feature: Original Article
  • Future Scenarios for Socio-Ecological Production Landscape and Seascape
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Abstract

The paper narrates an empirical research conducted for developing four alternative socio-ecological scenarios for the lower Gangetic delta in India (aka the Indian Sundarban). We used the ‘Story and Simulation (SAS) approach’ to build four short-term, landscape-scale scenarios for 2030, which include a ‘Business as Usual (BAU)’, and three alternative scenarios, namely ‘Market forces’, ‘Delta Republic’ and ‘Green Sundarban’. The storylines were built after careful screening of existing development and conservation plans, as well as by consulting local government officials. The storylines were then simulated using the Multi-Layer Perceptron–Markov Chain Analysis (MLP–MCA) model, with a multitude of factors, constraints, and attributes for each scenario. Historical and current land use maps of 2006 and 2016, derived from Landsat series (ETM+ and OLI), were used as the fundamental input to the model, which were also utilized to locate decadal changes, create several independent driver variables, calculate transition potentials and ultimately to develop future land use maps. To generate the scenarios, we used a Linear Programming (LP)-based land demand optimization method to alter the transition potential matrix. Our results indicated considerable loss of mud/tidal flats and viz.-a-viz. increase in river/water areas under all the four scenarios. We further observed moderate to a significant expansion of aquaculture for all the scenarios, with an almost two-fold increase under the Market forces scenario. In addition, three of the four scenarios indicated moderate loss of mangroves. The future extent of mangroves may vary from 1997.92 km2 (BAU) to 2172.25 km2 (Green Sundarban), which indicates to 3.72% overall decline (0.31% decline/year) to 4.67% (or 0.38% increase/year) overall gain from the present extent. As such, the Green Sundarban scenario was identified to the best possible pathway to serve the conservation interests and future sustainability of the delta. The results from the scenario analysis remain imperative to understand, plan and prepare for the plausible alternative regional futures, thereby optimizing conservation and development through proactive policy planning.

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Notes

  1. Here scenario analysis is used as a broad terminology which includes both scenario building and analysis of alternatives.

  2. Community development blocks (CDBs) are the smallest administrative unit for India.

  3. Block Development Officers, who are the administrative head of the Community Development Blocks.

  4. The name ‘Green Sundarban’ is derived from a community-based mangrove plantation project adopted by the South 24 Parganas district authority. The objective of this project is to develop local livelihood through plantation and sustainable management of mangrove forests in reclaimed and other vulnerable areas.

  5. Simultaneous rice and fish cultivation.

  6. Here mixed land use categories refer to two or more land use categories, such as vegetation with rural settlements etc. For the sake of simplification, we merged them into a single category.

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Acknowledgements

This research was supported by the Environment Research and Technology Development Fund [S-15 Predicting and Assessing Natural Capital and Ecosystem Services (PANCES)] of the Ministry of the Environment, Japan, JSPS KAKENHI Grant Number 17KT0076 and ‘Research and Social Implementation of Ecosystem-based Disaster Risk Reduction as Climate Change Adaptation in Shrinking Societies’ of the Research Institute for Humanity and Nature, Japan. The first and the fourth authors also thankfully acknowledge the postdoctoral fellowship provided by the Japan Society for Promotion of Sciences (JSPS). The authors would also like to thank all the district administrative and forest officials of South 24 Parganas for providing various policy documents, maps and reports from time to time.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Laboratory of Landscape Ecology and Planning, Department of Ecosystem Studies, Graduate School of Agriculture and Life Sciences, The University of Tokyo, Yayoi 1-1-1, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo, 113-8657, Japan

    Rajarshi DasGupta, Shizuka Hashimoto, Toshiya Okuro & Mrittika Basu

  2. Institute for Global Environmental Strategies, Hayama, Kanagawa, Japan

    Rajarshi DasGupta & Shizuka Hashimoto

  3. Institute of Advanced Study of Sustainability, United Nation’s University, Tokyo, Japan

    Mrittika Basu

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  1. Rajarshi DasGupta
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  2. Shizuka Hashimoto
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Correspondence to Rajarshi DasGupta.

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Handled by Osamu Saito, UNU-Institute for the Advanced Study of Sustainability Institute of Sustainability and Peace, Japan.

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DasGupta, R., Hashimoto, S., Okuro, T. et al. Scenario-based land change modelling in the Indian Sundarban delta: an exploratory analysis of plausible alternative regional futures. Sustain Sci 14, 221–240 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11625-018-0642-6

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