Land use/land cover (LULC) variations are accelerated by rapid urbanization and significantly impacted global Land Surface Temperature (LST). The dynamic increase in LST results in the Urban Heat Island (UHI) effect. In this study, future LULC change scenarios, seasonal (summer & winter) LST variations, and LST distribution over different LULC classes were predicted using Landsat satellite images for 1999, 2009, and 2019 in Rajshahi District, Bangladesh. Cellular Automata (CA) and Artificial Neural Network (ANN) procedures were used to predict the LULC changes and seasonal LST variations for 2029 and 2039. In addition, Focus Group Discussions (FGDs) and Key Informants Interviews (KIIs) were conducted to identify the possible impacts of LULC change, LST shifts, and climate change on agricultural productivity and developed a sustainable land use management plan for the study area. Validation of the CA model demonstrated an excellent accuracy with a kappa value of 0.82. Similarly, the ANN model's validation using Mean Square Error (0.523 and 0.796 for summer) and Correlation coefficient (0.6023 and 0.831 for winter) values demonstrated a good prediction accuracy. The LULC prediction result indicated that the built-up area will be expanded by 58.03 km2 and 79.90 km2, respectively, from 2019 to 2029 and 2039. The predicted seasonal LST indicated that in 2029 and 2039, more than 23.30 % and 50.46 % of the summer and 3.02 % and 13.02 % of the winter seasons will likely be experienced LSTs greater than 35 °C. The results of public participation exposed that changes in LULC classes, variations in LST, and climate change significantly impact the regional biodiversity (loss of farmland and water bodies), reduce agricultural productivity, and increase extreme weather events (flood, heavy rainfall, and cold/warm temperature). This study provides the useful guidelines for agricultural officers, urban planners, and environmental engineers to understand the spatial configurations of built-up area enlargement and provide effective policy measures to conserve farming lands to ensure environmental sustainability.

Land and property development process includes a series of multifaceted activities ranging from purchasing to converting it for development purposes and everything in between. The process itself encompasses multiple stakeholders, drivers, and contributions from diversified public and private actors and transaction cost arises out of their complex interaction. Transaction costs incurred during any kind of human interaction (i.e., transactions). Every actor involved in the process wishes to maximize his achievement under various constraints and hence institutional arrangement (i.e., set of humanly devised rules to administer the constraints) is necessary for efficient management of the development process. Therefore, to devise an optimum outcome out of economic and social transactions in the property development process, cooperative and competitive relationships between individuals should be understood from a broader socio-political and governance structure. In this research, it is critically argued that the land and property development process should implicate a multifaceted set of formal and informal rules or institutional arrangements to govern the intrinsic interaction, action and thereby reducing the related transaction cost. The central argument is further reproachfully evaluated and implicated in the urban development process through the myopic lens of the Transit-oriented development (TOD) pathway. A vigilant combination of descriptive and explanatory research approaches is adopted to analyze the connection between theory and practice.

Social safety, security, and comfort of school-going children during the travel time to school becomes a subject of anxiety to the parents and is a crucial issue in recent times. In this regard, community-based transport can be a significant way to address social security issues in travel at a reasonable cost and reduce the burden on private mode. In Dhaka city, school van service already exists but due to some sort of problems the service has not been proved an efficient and formal mode of transport for solving mobility problems. This study seeks to identify the existing problems and prospects of the school van service and provide a unique, healthy, safe, and reliable transport mode for children. Applying different tools of the Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) method, the problems and solutions have been drawn from the community. The recommendations of this study will help the school van services (a community-managed para-transit system) to be more functional in playing a vital role in solving the problems of short-distance travel. This service has great potentialities to be adopted in other trips such as trips to and from offices which will lessen the road congestion at the peak periods.