Effect of Uncontrolled Industrialization on Environmental Parameter: A Case Study of Mongla EPZ Using Machine Learning Approach

Abstract

The unplanned and uncontrolled industrialization leads to environmental pollution which ends in impacting human life and destroying the economy. Especially in the era of global warming coastal regions of all over the world are the most vulnerable which holds significant ecological importance for human habitations. In 1998 the establishment of the Mongla Export Processing Zone (MEPZ) in the coastal thana Mongla which is already famous for its seaport has led the area to the challenges of salinity intrusion and shrinking of agricultural land and its fertility. In this paper, the effect of unplanned industrialization inside the Mongla EPZ are on the area land surface temperature (LST), normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI), normalized difference water index (NDWI), and urban heat island (UHI) spanning from the year 2007 to 2023 has been investigated. Along with that a machine learning-based Artificial Neural Network (ANN) model was employed to forecast the situation in 2027 and 2031. Our industrial settlement analysis reveals that a substantial rise in industrial building was seen in 2015 in the EPZ area, whereas the EPZ area was almost settlement-free before 2011. With this increase in 2015, above 2% of the total municipal area will face drought which has become over 30% by 2023. The NDVI values are decreasing year-wise which reveals that the area is becoming vegetation less. Also, the increasing industrial activities in the EPZ turned LST increment. Our CA-ANN algorithm-based future prediction shows that about 30% of the whole municipality will face LST 27°C by 2031. Along with that the area's UHI values over 2°C than the rural surrounding will reach 6.5% by 2031. The study investigated the devastating impact of unplanned industrialization in EPZ on the surrounding environment and ecosystem.