rahul biswas

the cultivation of food crops. The results also showed that these livelihood activities resulted in an enhanced ability of respondents to construct and repair housing (physical capital), purchase land (natural capital), save money (economic capital), fund children's education (human capital) among others. In all, these results suggest that agroforestry is a sustainable alternative livelihood option which provides opportunities for reduced dependency on protected forests, in addition to increased potential for livelihood diversification and ability to cope with climate change impacts and other change drivers.

In developing countries, rural households instinctively burn huge amounts of biomass fuel, which has become a concern at present. In this study, an attempt has been made to assess the consumption pattern of biomass fuel in relation to socioeconomic factors in rural households in the three upazilas (subdistricts) in Khulna district of Bangladesh. The consumption pattern of biomass fuel was assessed by multistage random sampling techniques with a semi-structured questionnaire. The study revealed that households incorporate a variety of fuel sources, of which 97% use various types of biomass fuel, e.g., firewood, leaves and twigs, coconut shell and coir, crop residues, cow dung, etc. The average monthly household biomass fuel consumption was 193 kg, with a monthly expenditure of 5.86 USD. The largest share of biomass fuel was derived from firewood, which amounted to 105 kg per month. The middle income group and Kacha (clay) type households consume more biomass than other types of households. The major sources of biomass fuel were found in their home gardens and agricultural lands. These biomass fuels are mainly used for domestic cooking, and most of the households in the study area used general stoves. Among commonly available species, ten firewood species were identified as the most preferred by the majority of households in the study area. Insights from our research may be utilized to promote accessibility to clean energy for households in Bangladesh and other countries alike. Article Highlights 1. Biomass is the main sources of energy at the rural household level. 2. Medium income households use more biomass than poor and rich households. 3. The study recommends a directive to enhance improved cooking stoves and clean energy services.

Background Forests are very important for sequestering atmospheric carbon, and mangroves are amongst the most efficient carbon-sequestering ecosystems. In Bangladesh, several plantations of Sonneratia apetala have been raised, with large-scale plantations along the coastal belt. An individual-based model (KiWi model) was developed in order to analyze demographic processes in mangrove forests according to abiotic environmental factors, individual tree spacing, local tree-to-tree interactions, and intra-specific competition. In this study, we selected several silvicultural approaches (with or without thinning and with or without recruitment) to compare the development of planted forests in terms of forest management. Data obtained from the field monitors the output and parameterization of the model. Thinning normally avails more space and thus resources for growth, which leads to enhanced biomass increment. The objectives of this study were to identify the short-and long-term effects ...

Globally, mangrove forests are deteriorating due to several natural and anthropogenic factors such as sea level rise, habitat fragmentation, over-exploitation, pollution, etc. Sea-level rise - driven salinity would influence the functional activity of dominant species by declining their structure and functions, which is not well understood. Therefore, we tried to understand the increased salinity impact on the structures and functions of two identified dominant mangrove species (i.e., Excoecaria agallocha and Heritiera fomes) in the Sundarbans Mangrove Forest (SMF), Bangladesh. We test our hypothesis that salinity significantly retards the functions of dominant species structure and functions by evaluating two consecutive years of inventory data from 60 permanent sample plots (100 m2 each) established in three distinct salinity zones in the SMF. The study revealed that structural parameters of dominant species such as tree height, diameter at breast height (DBH), and basal area decreased in higher saline zones than in less saline zones. E. agallocha and H. fomes stored more biomass and carbon in less saline and moderate saline zones compared to high saline zone. Besides, functional variables such as above-ground biomass carbon and total biomass carbon decreased with salinity for both dominant species. This study demonstrated that salinity shapes dominant species by declining their height, DBH, growth, etc., which indicates salinity is a critical discriminating variable for losing species’ stand structures and functions. This information is critica to determine the physiological response of dominant species across the globe, which is crucial to predicting future climate change impacts such as sea-level rise.

Globally, mangrove forests are deteriorating due to several natural and anthropogenic factors such as sea level rise, habitat fragmentation, over-exploitation, pollution, etc. Sea-level rise-driven salinity would influence the functional activity of dominant species by declining their structure and functions, which is not well understood. Therefore, we tried to understand the increased salinity impact on the structures and functions of two identified dominant mangrove species (i.e., Excoecaria agallocha and Heritiera fomes) in the Sundarbans Mangrove Forest (SMF), Bangladesh. We test our hypothesis that salinity significantly retards the functions of dominant species structure and functions by evaluating two consecutive years of inventory data from 60 permanent sample plots (100 m 2 each) established in three distinct salinity zones in the SMF. The study revealed that structural parameters of dominant species such as tree height, diameter at breast height (DBH), and basal area decreased in higher saline zones than in less saline zones. E. agallocha and H. fomes stored more biomass and carbon in less saline and moderate saline zones compared to high saline zone. Besides, functional variables such as aboveground biomass carbon and total biomass carbon decreased with salinity for both dominant species. This study demonstrated that salinity shapes dominant species by declining their height, DBH, growth, etc., which indicates salinity is a critical discriminating variable for losing species' stand structures and functions. This information is critica to determine the physiological response of dominant species across the globe, which is crucial to predicting future climate change impacts such as sea-level rise.

The systematic Agroforestry practice is being popular day by day in Monirampur Upazilla of Jessore district of Bangladesh. Considering this situation, the present research work was conducted with a view to know agroforestry practice and to find out the potentialities of agroforestry based on sustainability. Multistage sampling technique method by using semi-structured questionnaires was followed in the field survey to collect data and information in the year of 2014-2016 from 140 respondents in Monirampur Upazilla of Jessore district in Bangladesh to fulfill the purpose of the research. The results showed that most of the respondents are middle aged (45%), education level is primary (32%) with medium size family (54%) and 74% of the respondents are involved in agriculture. Communication exposure is very low (70%) with low organizational participation (55%). The results illustrated that the respondents preferred homestead agroforestry (55%) as their major land use practice followed by livestock under tree cover (16%), tree crop association (13%), boundary plantation (9%) and woodlot agroforestry (7%) in the research area. Besides, 80% respondents get all benefits (environmental, social, economic, and biological) followed by economic benefit directly (10%), social benefit directly (5%), environmental benefit directly (3%), and biological benefit directly (2%). Most of them (90%) get security, employment generation and household income which accelerate their livelihood pattern. Majority respondents (64%) showed more favorable attitudes, 29% respondents showed favorable attitudes, only 7% showed neutral attitudes and no one shows negative attitudes towards agroforestry. Housing condition, proper sanitation, and asset possessions before practicing agroforestry were 40%, 77% and 35% respectively and after practicing agroforestry that changed condition are 75%,100% and 60% which revealed that peoples are benefitted due to practice of agroforestry. The result also revealed that majority primary educated respondents are involved in agriculture with medium size family mostly practiced mixed agroforestry around homestead along with livestock under tree cover, tree crop association, boundary plantation, woodlot agroforestry through possessing more favorable attitudes which ensures environmental, social, economical, biological benefits, enhance livelihood pattern, security, employment, household income etc. But communication exposure and organizational participation should be increased to adopt more technique and technology. Thus, agroforestry improve the proper utilization of resources; enhance environmentally friendly, socioeconomic sustainable production system and livelihood which is socially reasonable and economically feasible through diversification of input and output which reflects that agroforestry is a sustainable system in Bangladesh.

Aquasilviculture is currently the most frequent land-use practice of the Southwestern part in Bangladesh. The study was carried out to explore the status, benefits, problems, management strategies and marketing preference of practicing aquasilviculture. The study was conducted over a period of three months from September to November 2017. Convenience sampling method was used to select a total of 90 respondents involved in aquasilviculture practices at Paikgachha Upazilla in Khulna district of Bangladesh. Data were collected with the aid of the semi-structured questionnaire administrated interpersonally to the respondents. Among the respondents, almost two-thirds (64%) of them practices aquasilviculture on their own land and near about one-fourth (22%) of the respondents use their leased land for practicing aquasilviculture. In the study area, 63% of the respondents practice aquasilviculture in the land which was previously used for only paddy cultivation and 37% of respondents used their land only for fish culture. The study showed that farmers planted mainly A. saman, S. macrophylla, D. sissoo, A. Indica, A. indica, A nilotica etc. as trees species and S. melongena, B. alba, L. cylindrical, A. esculentus, I. aquatica, L. niger, S. tuberosum etc. as agricultural crops and and cultured shrimp, golda, mud crab and freshwater fishes such as O. mossambicus, C. catla, L. rohita, C. mrigala, H. molitrix, M. tengara into and/or besides their fish ponds. The management techniques in the study area involve soil working, thinning, pruning weeding, protection and application of fertilizer. Aquasilviculture system was contributed to meet the demand of fish, vegetable, timber, fuelwood, fruit and fodder as well as food and nutritional security. The ownership of land, lack of capital and natural calamities are the major problems in the study area.

People adjacent to the Sundarbans use minor forest products directly and indirectly. The main purpose of the study was to know the utilization of minor forest products of the Sundarbans by the people of Dacope Upazilla, Khulna district, Bangladesh. Multistage Purposive Sampling techniques were used with a semi-structured questionnaire to collect information from 90 respondents. The socioeconomic characteristics of the respondents surveyed in study area have shown in this study. Among the respondents they directly used 56.67% fish, 47.78% honey, 53.33% golpata, 38.89% fuel wood, 28.89% hogla, 12.22% prawn, 6.67% hantal , 3.33% crab, 7.77% nall, 8.89% grass, 4.44% keora fruit, 3.33% malia, 10.11% goran stick and 2.22% molasses. Besides among the respondents they indirectly used 54.44% fish, 14.44% honey, 51.11% golpata, 36.67% fuel wood, 15.55% hogla, 11.11% prawn, 5.56% hantal, 7.78% crab, 5.55% nall, 2.22% keora fruit, 6.67% malia, 3.33% goran stick, 16.67% shrimp fry, 4.44% medicinal plants. In the study area, only 31.11% respondents have equipment facilities. The working schedule of types of work and use products for household's construction of the respondents have also discussed in this study. The study releaved that physical problems, problem of securities, permission of getting pass, credit problem and problem of pirates were the major problems in the study area.

This study mainly focused on exploring perception of farmers' towards agroforestry practices and identifying the demographic factors influencing agroforestry adoption in Faridpur district. Field survey was conducted during November-December, 2016 using semi-structured questionnaire. Multi-stage random sampling was used to select upazillas, unions and villages. Snowball purposive sampling was applied to select 84 respondents in total for the questionnaire survey. Chi-square was used to test variables at 5% level of significance. Homestead agroforestry was found to be the most common agroforestry practice (39.28%), followed by fruit-based agroforestry (21.42%), woodlot plantation (13.09%) and so on. Agroforestry was perceived to increase farm productivity by 82.14% of the respondents, 73.8% opined that agroforestry increase household income, while 30.95% perceived it as a means to food security. On the contrary, 34.52% opined that agroforestry practices decrease cash crops production, 17.85% of the respondents stated agroforestry as a difficult practice. Chi-square test showed no significant association between the adoption of agroforestry practices and respondent's age (P > 0.05) or income range (P > 0.05) of the respondents. On the other hand, there is a posit ive significant association between the adoption of agroforestry practices and educational level (p< 0.05) as well as the farm size (p< 0.05) of the respondents. The study suggests raising awareness regarding the benefits of agroforestry practices as well as providing technical assistance.