Land Use and Land Use Planning in Bangladesh

In the fifth volume of his collected works, the author brings together selected papers, updated by footnotes, which provide an historical perspective on Bangladesh’s dynamic land use and the evolving approaches to rural development planning in the 1970s and 1980s. Aimed particularly at agriculture, geography and soil science researchers, teachers and students, and agricultural planning and extension officials, this book makes available material that previously had a limited circulation, provides models and benchmarks for repeating some of the studies described, and supplies practical training material. Part I provides background information on Bangladesh’s physical environment and land use. Part II comprises nine chapters describing wide-ranging land use studies made in support of agricultural development planning, ranging from the various ways in which farmers have intensified their crop production to legal aspects of land use regulation. Part III outlines the policies and principles involved in national and local-level land use planning, while Part IV provides information and guidelines for use in planning more intensive land use. Part V describes in detail the various methods tried in the 1970s and 1980s to use soil survey information for village and Thana development planning and for land use zoning. Throughout, emphasis is given to participatory planning methods.