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Evaluating Integrated Watershed Management using multiple criteria analysis—a case study at Chittagong Hill Tracts in Bangladesh

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Abstract

Criteria and indicators assessment is one of the ways to evaluate management strategies for mountain watersheds. One framework for this, Integrated Watershed Management (IWM), was employed at Chittagong Hill Tracts region of Bangladesh using a multi-criteria analysis approach. The IWM framework, consisting of the design and application of principles, criteria, indicators, and verifiers (PCIV), facilitates active participation by diverse professionals, experts, and interest groups in watershed management, to explicitly address the demands and problems to measure the complexity of problems in a transparent and understandable way. Management alternatives are developed to fulfill every key component of IWM considering the developed PCIV set and current situation of the study area. Different management strategies, each focusing on a different approach (biodiversity conservation, flood control, soil and water quality conservation, indigenous knowledge conservation, income generation, watershed conservation, and landscape conservation) were assessed qualitatively on their potential to improve the current situation according to each verifier of the criteria and indicator set. Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP), including sensitivity analysis, was employed to identify an appropriate management strategy according to overall priorities (i.e., different weights of each principle) of key informants. The AHP process indicated that a strategy focused on conservation of biodiversity provided the best option to address watershed-related challenges in the Chittagong Hill Tracts, Bangladesh.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Environmental Sciences and Management, Independent University, Bangladesh Plot-16, Block - B, Aftabuddin Ahmed Road, Bashundhara R/A., 1229, Dhaka, Bangladesh

    Shampa Biswas

  2. Department of Natural Resource Sciences, College of Agricultural, Human and Natural Resource Sciences, Washington State University, Johnson Hall, P.O. Box 646410, Pullman, WA, 99164-6410, USA

    Shampa Biswas & Mark E. Swanson

  3. Department of Forest and Soil Sciences, Institute of Silviculture, University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Peter Jordanstr. 82, 1190, Vienna, Austria

    Harald Vacik

  4. Institute of Forestry and Environmental Sciences, University of Chittagong, 4331, Chittagong, Bangladesh

    S. M. Sirajul Haque

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  1. Shampa Biswas
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  2. Harald Vacik
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  4. S. M. Sirajul Haque
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Biswas, S., Vacik, H., Swanson, M.E. et al. Evaluating Integrated Watershed Management using multiple criteria analysis—a case study at Chittagong Hill Tracts in Bangladesh. Environ Monit Assess 184, 2741–2761 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10661-011-2148-x

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