Emergence of water sensitive design : alternate development strategies for eastern periphery of Dhaka metropolitan area

Abstract EN

Dhaka, the capital city of Bangladesh, once had lowland on both the western and the eastern parts.

The low-land on the west has already fallen prey to urbanization after the construction of the flood embankment, and the eastern region, it is on a process of disappearing very fast.

The city is now expanding to areas that were mandatory open flood plains to keep the city flood-free.

Lack of physical planning is very evident here, which causes significant degradation of the situation.

At present master planning of the city following subdivision of land provide little attention to water problem when zoning.

Dhaka city had an elaborate system of water bodies and low-lands.

The vast low-land on both sides let the rivers spread over a broader area, maintaining the depth of flooding in low.

The low-land was the flood plains that stored water before discharge into rivers.

The city is expanding drastically by grabbing all the least open areas and worsening the flooding scenario rapidly.

Keeping these issues in mind this paper tried to understand the water system for the city, reasons for water (flooding, waterlogging) problems, the role of eastern low and wetland to control the city's flooding situation.

Focusing on the eastern periphery, this paper will try to find the landuse change for the last two decades with an emphasis on the natural area’s conversion.

Finally, following the local way of utilizing water bodies in everyday life extracting from literature and fieldwork, this paper will suggest some alternate design strategies for upcoming development through understanding the water system and checking flood problems in control also ensuring environmental quality.-