Quantification of the Environmental Degradation Due To the Urbanization of Dhaka-Naraynganj-Demra (DND) Project Area in Bangladesh

Abstract

The Dhaka-Narayanganj-Demra (DND) project is located in the vicinity of Dhaka City, capital of Bangladesh, in its southeast part, which was a Flood Control Drainage and Irrigation (FCDI) project but instead of agriculture promotion this area is now converted into an urban area. To assess and quantify the impact due to urbanization in DND project area, site assessment visits, socio-economic survey (questionnaire survey), water and air quality analysis and ambient noise level measuring program were carried out. In this analysis, we consider 32 interrelated environmental factors to conduct a qualitative as well as quantitative evaluation on overall environmental quality. Impact due to selected environmental factors are evaluated and quantified based on response of survey questionnaire; water, air and noise level monitoring data and observations from site visit. Our findings in this study revealed that the overall environmental quality in DND area is highly degraded (overall value of environmental quality is found highly negative) due to the unplanned urbanization.