Towards Interactive Urban Flood Management: A Case of Dhaka, Bangladesh

Geographically Bangladesh has a strong relationship with water resources. Flood is a recurrent event in Bangladesh and one of the most well known natural disasters. Dhaka, the capital, is located on the drainage path of the Ganges-Brahmaputra-Meghna basin and annually suffers from river flood due to spill over from the peripheral rivers and storm-water flooding by local rainfall during the monsoon season. Since its early days it has faced a number of severe floods. The 1988, 1998 and 2004 were the most catastrophic. As to the urban situation in Bangladesh, the high rate of urbanization in Dhaka has put a serious strain on natural resources (water and land), infrastructures and built environment. To accommodate the influx of people, Dhaka has been steadily expanding on filled-up water bodies and wetlands without a concern for adverse environmental impacts and additional infrastructures and services required to sustain the new developments. The drastic reduction in natural water storage areas, inadequate drainage paths and their improper operation and maintenance are worsening the flooding situation. A planned management of Dhaka city needs an integrated and coordinated flood management. In this light, this research aims at the analysis of the interactive water resources management approaches on potential improvement for urban flood management in Dhaka. Different theories on water resources management are studied to get insight of the concept and elements that are involved in its functioning. The literature study also focused on flood management theories, as it is an important subset of integrated water resources management. The Urban Flood Risk Management based on three concepts: IFM, Total Water Cycle Management and Land use planning. The focus of this concept is to mainstreaming flood risks into the development process. The empirical part of this research is conducted by semi-structured in-depth interviews with open-ended questions regarding the urban flood management in Dhaka. The main findings of the research states that the urban floods in Dhaka are managed in ad hoc manner. Historically, the water resources management in Bangladesh is aimed at flood control to protect crops. This stand-alone approach is also applied in Dhaka to control flood aiming at reducing economic loss and saving human lives. The flood control projects in Dhaka exhibits only short-term economic development. A comprehensive approach for long-term perspectives on economic development with social, ecological environmental conservatory measures are left behind. In addition, the urbanization and flood prevention are closely interlinked in Dhaka. The top-down decision making process together with the less functional integration of the water institutions, failed to manage the urban floods in an integrated manner. The mainstreaming of the flood risks into development planning of Dhaka cannot stand-alone. The introduction of interactive flood management in Dhaka largely depends on the change in political decision making process. For sustainable urban flood management in Dhaka, there is an urgent need for interaction with societal actors in the decision-making process. The interactive approach involves participation of both citizens and stakeholders. Thereby it combines top-down and bottom-up inputs of local knowledge and objectives to develop local solutions to the water resources management. The continuous monitoring of the water system helps assessing management strategies and supports the decision-making process. This interaction helps to develop new policy approaches. With response to the current situation of Dhaka, the water and flood mangers need to govern in an interactive way both with society and water systems. A coordinated and comprehensive management approach along with strong institutional framework is very important for sustainable development in urban flood management of Dhaka.