Causes and Impacts of Land Fragmentation in the Coastal Area of Bangladesh

Identification of root causes and associated impacts of land fragmentation is necessary to reduce future fragmentation and mitigate its impacts. Thus, the purpose of this study was to explore the causes and impacts of land fragmentation in a purposively selected coastal Upazila (sub-district) of Bangladesh. This study is carried out mainly based on the collected information from the individual representative of the selected 133 households. It discloses that most of the households observed the land fragmentation during their possession because of rapid population growth and breaking the joint/extended families into nuclear families. In fact, land fragmentation can increase or decrease a particular land use type. However, the results of this research confirm that there are no significant (p >0.07, based on the number of households) associations found between increasing and decreasing homestead land. In contrast, the number of households with cropland significantly (p <0.0001) decreased, whereas the number of households having wetlands significantly (p <0.04) increased. The surveyed households have been practicing high-yielding varieties of crops, using biofertilizers, possessing new land, and changing their income sources for adapting to new land use behavior. The surveyed villagers opine that the land fragmentation problem could be managed by encouraging people living with extended/joint families, vertical use of land, adopting land use policy, etc. The results of this community-reported study can be used to mitigate the impacts of land fragmentation in the coastal rural area of Bangladesh.