Asia-Pacific, Climate Change, Development & Aid, Education, Environment, Health, Labour, TerraViva United Nations, Trade & Investment, Water & Sanitation
Downpours flood the streets of Dhaka. Credit: Farid Ahmed/ IPS
– Dhaka’s recent and recurrent flooding is often treated as a natural disaster, but rain is only the trigger. The deeper causes are political, planning and ecological failure: wetland loss, canal encroachment, unplanned growth, weak enforcement, fragmented institutions and short-term engineering fixes. Dhaka is not drowning because it rains; it is drowning because it has been built as if water had nowhere to go.
Historically, Dhaka was part of a watery landscape of rivers, canals, ponds, floodplains and low-lying retention areas. These were not vacant lands; they were essential drainage infrastructure that stored rainwater, slowed runoff and carried excess water toward surrounding rivers. As the city expanded, this blue-green network was filled, narrowed or severed, leaving drains unable to cope even with moderate rainfall.
Mohammad Zaman
Urbanisation has made this worse by replacing absorbent land with concrete. Roads, buildings and paved courtyards reduce infiltration and speed up runoff. A 2023 study on pluvial flooding in Dhaka found that land-use change has depleted natural canals and increased flood vulnerability, with future inundation likely to rise under continued expansion. Every structure built on a wetland or flood-flow zone transfers risk to nearby neighbourhoods.
Drains and canals have also deteriorated. Many are clogged with waste, narrowed by illegal structures or disconnected from smaller drains. Box culverts, often promoted as modernisation, have in some places buried waterways rather than restoring them as living drainage corridors. Drainage fails not only because pipes are small, but because the wider hydrological system has been cut apart.
Climate change adds pressure through shorter, heavier and less predictable rainfall, but it should not excuse bad planning. World Bank work on urban flooding in Greater Dhaka has warned that the city already has an adaptation deficit. The real problem is that Dhaka has reduced its own capacity to absorb shocks, treating flooding as a pipe-sizing seasonal issue rather than a citywide water-management challenge.
The consequences appear first in transport paralysis. When major roads in Mirpur, Dhanmondi, Green Road, Motijheel, Shantinagar, Old Dhaka and other areas go underwater, commuters lose hours, public transport stalls and businesses suffer. The cost includes damaged vehicles and inventories, delayed logistics, lost productivity and the daily stress of moving through a city that cannot function after rain.
Flooding also deepens inequality. Low-income residents in informal and low-lying settlements face contaminated water entering their homes, loss of daily income, damaged belongings and higher disease risk. Floodwater mixed with sewage, waste and pollutants increases infections and waterborne illness. The poor pay twice: through greater exposure and weaker access to healthcare, savings and political voice.
The scale of impact shows this is not a seasonal inconvenience. A 2023 GIS and remote-sensing study found that almost 35 percent of Dhaka falls within high or very high waterlogging-vulnerability zones, with slum households disproportionately concentrated there. Recent rainfall confirms the risk: Dhaka recorded 130 millimetres of rain in six hours on 12 July 2024, while another episode brought 196 millimetres in 24 hours in 2025, submerging major roads despite large drainage investments.
Infrastructure spending has not produced resilience. The two Dhaka city corporations reportedly invested more than Tk 262 crore over four years up to 2024 to build 334.19 kilometres of drains, box culverts and related infrastructure, yet large areas still flooded. Planning data show that Dhaka lost 3,440 acres out of 9,556 acres of designated flood-flow zones, retention areas and waterbodies since the 1995 Detailed Area Plan, while central-city waterbodies reportedly fell from 20.57 percent in 1995 to 2.9 percent in 2023. The city is paying to drain water while allowing the systems that make drainage possible to disappear.
This failure is reinforced by institutional fragmentation. Responsibility is divided among Dhaka WASA, the two city corporations, RAJUK, the Bangladesh Water Development Board and others. Each controls part of the problem, but no single body manages the full catchment: drains, canals, retention areas, pumps, river outfalls and land-use control. The result is scattered action followed by renewed flooding.
Weak enforcement makes plans meaningless. Master plans and Detailed Area Plans have identified flood-flow zones, retention ponds and wetlands, yet these areas continue to disappear under housing, roads and commercial development. Encroachment survives because it is profitable, politically protected or administratively tolerated.
Accountability is also weak. Spending is reported, but outcomes are rarely evaluated. Dhaka does not need another narrow drainage project; it needs the political courage to enforce existing plans, recover waterways and protect the remaining wetlands.
The city must treat canals, wetlands, ponds and flood-flow zones as critical public infrastructure. Remaining wetlands should be protected, encroached canals demarcated and recovered, and major waterways restored as open drainage corridors connected to surrounding rivers. Dhaka also needs an integrated flood-management platform with clear authority over land-use approvals, canal recovery, drainage investment, pump operation, solid-waste control and emergency response.
Future planning must also centre vulnerable communities. Informal settlements, low-income neighbourhoods, street vendors, schoolchildren and daily-wage workers face the harshest effects but are rarely treated as planning partners. Community reporting of blocked drains, health warnings, emergency transport plans and compensation for repeated losses should be part of resilience policy. A flood-safe Dhaka requires ecological restoration, institutional discipline and social justice.
Dhaka’s flooding is a warning about planning against nature. The city has tried to engineer its way out of a crisis created by land conversion, institutional weakness and ecological neglect. Until it restores and governs its blue-green network as essential infrastructure, each monsoon will bring the same result: a megacity halted by rain it once knew how to live with. The choice is no longer between development and drainage; it is between protecting people and flooding them in the name of progress.
Dr. Mohammad Zaman is an international development consultant whose work across Asia and Africa focuses on social safeguards, displacement, resettlement and inclusive development. He lives in Vancouver, Canada, and can be reached at: [email protected]
IPS UN Bureau
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