Once widely known as the city of mosques and water, Dhaka now teeters on the edge of an environmental collapse.
A new report by the environmental group Change Initiative, “Dhaka Without Nature? Rethinking Sustainable Urbanism Based on Natural Rights”, lays bare a grim reality: decades of unchecked urbanisation have choked the capital, leaving it overheated, overcrowded, and ecologically devastated.
Since 1980, Dhaka’s densely populated zones have increased sevenfold, replacing trees, wetlands, and ponds with concrete and asphalt. Over 60 per cent of the city’s wetlands have disappeared.
Green cover has halved from 21.6 per cent to just 11.6 per cent, and water bodies now occupy a mere 4.8 per cent of the urban landscape.
The consequences are catastrophic. Surface temperatures have risen by up to 5°C, with areas like Hazaribagh, Tejgaon, and Rampura becoming searing urban heat islands where the temperature regularly exceeds 32°C.
This is not simply a matter of discomfort; it is a public health and climate emergency.
Toxic air, vanishing water sources, and extreme heat are making Dhaka increasingly uninhabitable. As M Zakir Hossain Khan, CEO of Change Initiative, aptly put it: “Dhaka is no longer just hot – it’s hostile.”
At the heart of this crisis is poor governance and rampant, unregulated development. Industrial and residential construction continues to spread with minimal oversight.
Shockingly, 37 out of the city’s 50 police precincts have surpassed safe construction limits. Neighbourhoods like Rampura, Adabor, and Kafrul have become “urban deserts”, devoid of any meaningful vegetation.
Even the city’s rivers – the Buriganga, Turag, Balu, and Shitalakshya – once Dhaka’s lifelines, are now reduced to polluted, encroached-upon channels incapable of supporting the city’s ecological balance.
What was once a naturally resilient urban environment is now a cautionary tale of what happens when development ignores sustainability.
Dhaka’s future hinges on immediate, decisive action. Urban planning must be reoriented around ecological principles.
Green spaces require urgent restoration, wetland encroachments must be reversed, and construction must adhere to strict environmental regulations.
Without bold intervention, Dhaka risks becoming not just unliveable, but unrecognisable. This is no longer a matter of planning for tomorrow; it is about survival today. The time to act is not approaching — it has already arrived.
