Bangladesh has a high proportion of wetland areas, which of late have been declining. In the Ganges-Brahmaputra floodplain alone, approximately 2.1 million ha of wetland have been lost to flood control, drainage and irrigation development. This study estimates the changes of wetlands in the Northwest Bangladesh by analyzing Landsat satellite images using remote sensing and GIS tool, ILWIS. For this purpose, three Landsat scenes of 1989, 2000 and 2010 are used. It is found
that, total wetland area in the Northwest region of Bangladesh during the dry period in 1989, 2000 and 2010 were 1208.72, 903.54 and 867.18 sq. km respectively. This indicates a decrease of 25.25% wetland areas from 1989 to 2000 and a decrease of 4.02% wetland areas from 2000 to 2010. The changes of wetland areas during the dry periods of different years in the selected districts and upazilas of the Northwest Bangladesh are also estimated. Wetlands in most of the
selected districts and upazilas have been decreased during the period of 1989-2010.