“This waterlogging is no one’s fault; it is our fault, for being born in this country,” said a frustrated citizen in response to a journalist’s question on waterlogging in Chattogram. It is as if a remake of a famous drama is staged every year, directed by the city authorities. Rickshaw pullers navigate streets that turn into rivers. Children miss school. Businesses lose thousands in a single afternoon. And after the water recedes and the mud dries, everyone waits for it to happen again.
This is more than a natural disaster. It is a failure of planning.
Chattogram has been battling waterlogging for years. Crores of taka have been spent to resolve it. Projects have been launched with great fanfare and completed with little impact. The real problem is not a lack of investment but the fact that we keep attempting solutions before properly diagnosing the disease.
To figure out why Chattogram gets flooded every year, you have to understand the unique nature of this city. It is not flat. It is not far from the sea. And its rivers are not like any other rivers. The Karnaphuli, the Halda, and other rivers that run through or around the city are tidal rivers; their levels fluctuate with the rise and fall of the Bay of Bengal. Even with a properly designed drain, water cannot flow out during high tide. Add heavy monsoon rainfall to a high tide, and the city simply has nowhere to remove the water. This aspect has been largely overlooked in previous projects.
With years of urban development, wetlands filled in, canals encroached on, and green belts paved, you have a city that has systematically destroyed its own natural drainage system and failed to replace it. This is not just Chattogram’s problem but a national problem, with other cities including Dhaka suffering from a similar lack of foresight in urban development.
The solution begins with the right interpretation and use of data. In Chattogram’s case, before a single drain is widened or a canal dredged, the authorities must build a precise, scientific picture of how water actually moves through the city. The first step would be creating a high-resolution Digital Elevation Model (DEM), essentially a precise 3D map of the city’s terrain created using Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR)-equipped drones. Add to this a comprehensive soil study and research on land use changes in the last 30 years via satellite data, and a survey of the existing drainage system. Then model all of this together, overlaying rainfall patterns, tidal cycles, and the physical reality of the city’s built environment. What you get is a 3D simulation that tells you exactly where water collects, why it cannot escape, and what interventions will have the greatest impact. No more guesswork, no more political decisions dressed up as technical ones.
Any serious plan must confront what has happened to the port city’s network of canals that once drained the city’s low-lying areas. Years of encroachment, illegal construction along canal banks, and accumulated silt have rendered many of them useless. Restoring these canals is not glamorous work. But it will be foundational. No amount of new infrastructure can compensate for a drainage network that is blocked at its most basic level.
Another factor to consider is climate change. Chattogram’s rainfall is becoming more intense and less predictable thanks to the climate crisis. Sea levels are rising, which will worsen tidal backflow over the coming decades. Any drainage master plan built only around today’s conditions will be obsolete within a generation. The plan must be designed incorporating future climate projections so that the infrastructure built today does not need to be rebuilt in 20 years.
Everything described above is entirely achievable. The technology is commercially available. The approach is globally successful. Other cities in Asia—from Ho Chi Minh City to Jakarta to Chennai—have employed these methods to create efficient, data-driven drainage systems.
Chattogram does not lack technical know-how. It lacks institutional will. It requires the national and local governments to commit to do this well. It requires agencies to coordinate, to share information. It requires the courage to evict canal encroachers and the patience to implement a phased, multi-year programme, rather than chasing quick wins before the next election.
The people of Chattogram have waited long enough. They deserve a city that does not flood every time it rains. That city is possible. The only question is whether those with the power to build it have the will to try.
Masudur Rashied is an urban planner and water management researcher.
Views expressed in this article are the author's own.
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