Spatial Assessment of Risk of River Flood in Dhaka City, Bangladesh

Modern water management approaches aim to limit damage by ascertaining risk. Dhaka, the capital city of Bangladesh is surrounded by a network of rivers, which makes the city vulnerable to flooding. After the 1988 flood, the western part of Dhaka City was protected from river flooding by new embankments and raised roads. However, despite protective measures for Dhaka West, catastrophic floods in 1988 and 2004 affected both the protected western area and the unprotected eastern part of the city. The situation continues to deteriorate. In designing flood control measures reliant solely on old flood inundation maps, the absence of flood risk maps for reference and information provision generally constrains the efficacy and design of existing flood control systems. To address the need to close the identified gap, this study aims at assessing flood risk caused by the Balu-Tongikhal river system in the eastern part of Dhaka City.