Dhaka Without Nature? Rethinking Urban Sustainability

A Boy in the Heat

It is late July, and Dhaka feels like a city on fire. In a narrow lane of Sutrapur, twelve-year-old Rafiq tries to concentrate on his homework but sweat drips onto the pages of his notebook. His family’s home, a single room roofed with corrugated tin, radiates the day’s heat long after the sun has set. His mother has hung damp sheets across the doorway, hoping to summon a breeze that never comes. Inside, the thermometer reads 35°C; outside, where the concrete lanes shimmer, it feels closer to forty. Rafiq’s grandmother tells him of another Dhaka she once knew a city where ponds reflected the sky, courtyards were shaded by trees, and the monsoon brought relief rather than dread. “We had heat,” she says, “but it never suffocated us like this.” Her memory is not a romantic exaggeration. It is evidence of how radically Dhaka has changed in just four decades.

When the City Still Had a Soul

In 1980, Dhaka was still a city where nature breathed. Waterbodies covered more than twelve percent of its landscape. Trees stretched across one-fifth of the land, while grasslands and agricultural plots dominated more than half the metropolitan area. Built-up zones were still modest, amounting to only 6.8 percent of the land. Wetlands absorbed excess rain and cooled the air; agricultural fields provided space for air to flow; and tree canopies sheltered homes and streets. The balance between human settlement and ecological function had not yet been lost. But with population pressure mounting and development accelerating, the foundations of that balance were already under threat. Over the next four decades, Dhaka’s ecological fabric would be ripped apart, leaving behind a city that can no longer regulate its own climate.

The Four Forty Years of Vanishing Life

The scale of transformation is startling. Between 1980 and 2024, waterbodies shrank from 37.3 square kilometers to only 14.7, a loss of more than sixty percent. Tree cover fell from 65.7 square kilometers to 35.3, nearly halved. Grass and agricultural land diminished from 168.8 to 74.4 square kilometers, a reduction of fifty-six percent. At the same time, built-up areas expanded from just 20.7 square kilometers to a staggering 148.8, nearly half of the city’s total footprint. These figures represent more than land-use change. They chart the systematic removal of the city’s lungs and veins. Where wetlands once cooled, there are now roads and apartment blocks. Where fields once breathed, there are now factories and flyovers. Where trees once shaded, there are now heat-trapping walls of concrete.

The Forests That Fell in Silence

Tree cover tells a particularly painful story. In Dhaka North City Corporation, tree cover dropped from 45.8 to 25 square kilometers between 1980 and 2024. In Dhaka South City Corporation, the decline was from 19.9 to just 10.3. The losses are not evenly distributed. In DNCC, Bimanbandar retains 77.8 square meters of trees per person, and Uttarkhan offers 44.8. In DSCC, Shahbag still holds 20.1 and Demra 12.2. But these are exceptions. In most neighborhoods, the picture is bleak. In Adabar, tree cover per person has fallen to 0.02 square meters; in Rampura it is 0.38; in Kafrul 0.39. In Wari, Kalabagan, and Sutrapur the figures are similarly close to zero. The World Health Organization recommends at least nine square meters per person. For most of Dhaka, that standard is now a distant dream. Children like Rafiq grow up in neighborhoods where shade has become a memory, not a right. 

Fields That Became Memories

Agricultural land and open grass once defined Dhaka’s outskirts and neighborhoods. By 1980, more than half the city was still fields and open space. By 2024, less than a quarter remained. DNCC’s grass and agricultural land fell from 108 to 51 square kilometers; DSCC’s from 60 to 23. The contrasts are sharp. In Uttarkhan, more than half of the land is still grass. Turag and Badda retain a third. But in Adabar, only three percent survives. In Hatirjheel and Uttara Paschim, six percent. In DSCC, Khilgaon holds forty-four percent, Sabujbag thirty-six, Demra thirty-five. But the older heart of the city has lost nearly all of its open space. Bangshal has one percent. Sutrapur two. Wari two. These numbers are not only about land. They describe the narrowing of life. In one part of the city, children still run across fields. In another, they grow up hemmed in by walls and heat.

The Disappearance of Water, Drop by Drop

No loss is as tragic as the disappearance of blue space. In 1980, Dhaka’s waterbodies made up 12.3 percent of its area. By 2024, they make up just 4.8 percent. The per capita picture is dire. In DNCC, the average waterbody per person is 1.79 square meters. The standard is 4.5. Only five thanas meet it: Bimanbandar, Turag, Gulshan, Khilkhet, and Cantonment. In Mirpur and Kafrul, waterbody access is close to zero. In DSCC, the average is even lower 0.97 square meters per person. Only Demra meets the standard. Sutrapur and Gendaria have none at all. And the water that remains is often unusable. Canals are choked by encroachment. Rivers like the Buriganga carry more sewage than life. Stagnant ponds spread disease. Water, once the city’s greatest strength, has become its weakest point.

Concrete’s Relentless Conquest

The spread of concrete has been relentless. Built-up areas have expanded from 6.8 percent of Dhaka in 1980 to nearly half in 2024. In DNCC, only eight of twenty-six thanas keep built-up areas below the fifty percent threshold set by RAJUK. Adabar is now eighty-nine percent concrete. Mirpur eighty-six. Rampura and Kafrul above eighty-three. DSCC is even denser. Only five of its twenty-four thanas remain under fifty percent. In Bangshal and Sutrapur, ninety-six percent of land is built-up. Wari is ninety-three, Kalabagan ninety-two, Dhanmondi ninety-one. These figures describe neighborhoods that have no ecological space left. They are seas of concrete, with no room to breathe.

The Heat Islands

These transformations have produced a new city, a heat island where relief is scarce. In 1990, more than half of Dhaka was within a moderate temperature range of 26 to 30°C. By 2024, less than a quarter was. In 1990, only five percent of the city was hotter than 30°C. By 2024, nearly eighty percent was. The maximum average land surface temperature reached 39.8°C. The hottest zones are the densest. Tejgaon, with sixty-four percent built-up and less than ten percent trees, now averages 33°C. Rampura and Darussalam also cross 32°C. In DSCC, Shyampur and Hazaribag exceed 32°C. In contrast, Uttarkhan, with nearly thirty percent trees and limited built-up, stays at 29.8°C. Shah Ali and Cantonment hover around thirty to thirty-one. These differences are more than numbers. They determine who can survive the heat. The poor, crowded into the hottest, least ventilated neighborhoods, bear the worst of it.

Where Nature Still Fights to Survive

Amid this devastation, a few places still remind Dhaka of what nature can do. Step into Ramna Park at midday and the change is immediate. Temperatures inside fall by two to three and a half degrees compared to the surrounding streets. Tree cover brings the land surface temperature down to around thirty.

The ponds inside the park are cooler still, below twenty-nine. The Botanical Garden at Shah Ali offers another miracle. Even when surrounding areas touch thirty-five or more, inside the garden's temperatures dip to twenty-seven to twenty-nine. These green and blue sanctuaries are living experiments. They prove that nature is the most effective and affordable air conditioner a city can have. 

The Rights of Nature, Betrayed

What Dhaka has lost is not just ecological balance. It has violated the rights of nature itself. Trees, rivers, and soils are not inert commodities. They are living systems with the right to exist, flourish, and regenerate. Dhaka has trampled those rights. It has destroyed wetlands, cut forests, poisoned rivers, and suffocated ecosystems. The four pillars of natural rights, life and dignity, liberty, justice, and indigenous knowledge have been undermined. The right to life has been violated as wetlands and forests vanish. The right to liberty has been denied as canals are blocked and rivers obstructed. The right to justice has been twisted, with elites enjoying shaded neighborhoods while slums suffocate. The knowledge of communities who once stewarded wetlands and fields has been erased from planning. Dhaka’s crisis is not only technical. It is ethical.

A Fragile Chance to Cool the City Again

Meeting international standards would require planting fifty-six square kilometers of trees and restoring thirty-one square kilometers of waterbodies.

The effect would be modest in scale but profound in impact: an average citywide cooling of one degree Celsius. In a city where summer peaks already exceed thirty-nine, that single degree could save lives. It could mean fewer elderly people collapsing in heatwaves, fewer children fainting in schools, fewer workers falling ill on construction sites. Ramna and the Botanical Garden already demonstrate what is possible. The task is to scale these effects across the city.

The Dream of Running Beneath a Tree

As the evening azan rises from the mosque, Rafiq lies awake on the floor of his family’s home. The day’s heat lingers in the walls; the air remains heavy. In his dreams, he runs through shaded fields, feels the grass beneath his feet, and dips his hands into the cool surface of a pond. His dream is not fantasy. It is a right - the right of every child to breathe in his own city. Dhaka’s choice is simple. Restore its rivers, trees, and wetlands, or condemn its children to suffocate in a city without nature.