Searching Landscape Elements from Indigenous Land-Water Interface to Develop Integrated Landscape Framework for Water Sensitive Urban Design

Abstract

Dhaka, the capital city of Bangladesh, once had enormous water resources which played an important role in structuring settlement patterns and maintaining overall hydro-ecological equilibrium. Eastern Periphery, the essential spontaneous territory of the Dhaka Metropolitan Area (DMA) still have a traditional setting integrating natural landscape for production, transportation, open space network towards water sensitive urban development. But, city’s present development activities for this part as well as the entire city do not respect the deep geo-morphological nature of the territory. Thus, the city failed to protect and integrate these essential natural water bodies with the built environment and creating adverse effects on flooding, waterlogging and other environmental conditions. To address the present urban crisis associated with water, it is essential to search for strategies to protect the mandatory water bodies and integrate those in the land development process. The traditional way of integrating natural land-water resources for hydrological-ecological performance is required to discover from the territorial settings and incorporate those through strategies. The physiographical characteristics of the land-water interface have a direct reflection of the regional hydrology. This research aims to investigate the physical pattern and process of the water edge from the traditional settlement of eastern fringe of DMA.