Reckoning physical properties of firewood with its preference by the rural households in a selected village of Narsingdi district of Bangladesh

The biomass energy has the potentiality of sequestering carbon and the capacity of reducing global warming. The study was conducted with a view to assessing the local preferences of firewood for domestic use with the physical characteristics of firewood species. The study was conducted in different communities of Kamrabo village under Shibpur Upazila in Narsingdi district of Bangladesh. Purposive random sampling was performed for the study covering 50% households with a total of 160 households of the study area. A direct interview with semi-structured questionnaires based on twelve quality criteria was conducted in the study area for identification of local preferences of firewood species and drawing up a pair-wise ranking matrix based on it. Fuel value index (FVI) was used to rank the preferred firewood species based on their physical properties. The trees Artocarpus heterophyllus, Swietenia mahagoni, Albizia lebbek, Acacia auriculiformis, Syzygium fruticosum, etc. having the FVI values were found in decreasing order. The study found a resemblance between the order of FVI values and the ranks of the firewood species by household preferences. The study will be useful in energy management and policy in rural Bangladesh.