DHAKA, Bangladesh, August 13 (IPS) – Dhaka’s latest and recurrent flooding is usually handled as a pure catastrophe, however rain is just the set off. The deeper causes are political, planning and ecological failure: wetland loss, canal encroachment, unplanned progress, weak enforcement, fragmented establishments and short-term engineering fixes. Dhaka isn’t drowning as a result of it rains; it’s drowning as a result of it has been constructed as if water had nowhere to go.
Traditionally, Dhaka was a part of a watery panorama of rivers, canals, ponds, floodplains and low-lying retention areas. These weren’t vacant lands; they have been important drainage infrastructure that saved rainwater, slowed runoff and carried extra water towards surrounding rivers. As the town expanded, this blue-green community was stuffed, narrowed or severed, leaving drains unable to manage even with average rainfall.
Urbanisation has made this worse by changing absorbent land with concrete. Roads, buildings and paved courtyards cut back infiltration and pace up runoff. A 2023 examine on pluvial flooding in Dhaka discovered that land-use change has depleted pure canals and elevated flood vulnerability, with future inundation more likely to rise underneath continued growth. Each construction constructed on a wetland or flood-flow zone transfers danger to close by neighbourhoods.
Drains and canals have additionally deteriorated. Many are clogged with waste, narrowed by unlawful constructions or disconnected from smaller drains. Field culverts, usually promoted as modernisation, have in some locations buried waterways somewhat than restoring them as residing drainage corridors. Drainage fails not solely as a result of pipes are small, however as a result of the broader hydrological system has been minimize aside.
Local weather change provides stress by way of shorter, heavier and fewer predictable rainfall, nevertheless it mustn’t excuse unhealthy planning. World Financial institution work on city flooding in Larger Dhaka has warned that the town already has an adaptation deficit. The actual downside is that Dhaka has lowered its personal capability to soak up shocks, treating flooding as a pipe-sizing seasonal subject somewhat than a citywide water-management problem.
The results seem first in transport paralysis. When main roads in Mirpur, Dhanmondi, Inexperienced Street, Motijheel, Shantinagar, Previous Dhaka and different areas go underwater, commuters lose hours, public transport stalls and companies endure. The associated fee consists of broken automobiles and inventories, delayed logistics, misplaced productiveness and the day by day stress of transferring by way of a metropolis that can’t operate after rain.
Flooding additionally deepens inequality. Low-income residents in casual and low-lying settlements face contaminated water getting into their houses, lack of day by day earnings, broken belongings and better illness danger. Floodwater combined with sewage, waste and pollution will increase infections and waterborne sickness. The poor pay twice: by way of larger publicity and weaker entry to healthcare, financial savings and political voice.
The size of influence reveals this isn’t a seasonal inconvenience. A 2023 GIS and remote-sensing examine discovered that just about 35 p.c of Dhaka falls inside excessive or very excessive waterlogging-vulnerability zones, with slum households disproportionately concentrated there. Latest rainfall confirms the danger: Dhaka recorded 130 millimetres of rain in six hours on 12 July 2024, whereas one other episode introduced 196 millimetres in 24 hours in 2025, submerging main roads regardless of giant drainage investments.
Infrastructure spending has not produced resilience. The 2 Dhaka metropolis companies reportedly invested greater than Tk 262 crore over 4 years as much as 2024 to construct 334.19 kilometres of drains, field culverts and associated infrastructure, but giant areas nonetheless flooded. Planning knowledge present that Dhaka misplaced 3,440 acres out of 9,556 acres of designated flood-flow zones, retention areas and waterbodies because the 1995 Detailed Space Plan, whereas central-city waterbodies reportedly fell from 20.57 p.c in 1995 to 2.9 p.c in 2023. The town is paying to empty water whereas permitting the methods that make drainage potential to vanish.
This failure is strengthened by institutional fragmentation. Duty is split amongst Dhaka WASA, the 2 metropolis companies, RAJUK, the Bangladesh Water Growth Board and others. Every controls a part of the issue, however no single physique manages the total catchment: drains, canals, retention areas, pumps, river outfalls and land-use management. The result’s scattered motion adopted by renewed flooding.
Weak enforcement makes plans meaningless. Grasp plans and Detailed Space Plans have recognized flood-flow zones, retention ponds and wetlands, but these areas proceed to vanish underneath housing, roads and industrial improvement. Encroachment survives as a result of it’s worthwhile, politically protected or administratively tolerated.
Accountability can also be weak. Spending is reported, however outcomes are not often evaluated. Dhaka doesn’t want one other slim drainage undertaking; it wants the political braveness to implement present plans, get better waterways and defend the remaining wetlands.
The town should deal with canals, wetlands, ponds and flood-flow zones as vital public infrastructure. Remaining wetlands ought to be protected, encroached canals demarcated and recovered, and main waterways restored as open drainage corridors linked to surrounding rivers. Dhaka additionally wants an built-in flood-management platform with clear authority over land-use approvals, canal restoration, drainage funding, pump operation, solid-waste management and emergency response.
Future planning should additionally centre susceptible communities. Casual settlements, low-income neighbourhoods, avenue distributors, schoolchildren and daily-wage staff face the harshest results however are not often handled as planning companions. Neighborhood reporting of blocked drains, well being warnings, emergency transport plans and compensation for repeated losses ought to be a part of resilience coverage. A flood-safe Dhaka requires ecological restoration, institutional self-discipline and social justice.
Dhaka’s flooding is a warning about planning towards nature. The town has tried to engineer its means out of a disaster created by land conversion, institutional weak point and ecological neglect. Till it restores and governs its blue-green community as important infrastructure, every monsoon will deliver the identical end result: a megacity halted by rain it as soon as knew the way to stay with. The selection is now not between improvement and drainage; it’s between defending individuals and flooding them within the title of progress.
Dr. Mohammad Zaman is a world improvement marketing consultant whose work throughout Asia and Africa focuses on social safeguards, displacement, resettlement and inclusive improvement. He lives in Vancouver, Canada, and may be reached at: [email protected]
IPS UN Bureau
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