Land Use Planning for Flood Mitigation in Dhaka City Using Remote Sensing and GIS

Dhaka, the capital city of Bangladesh, is surrounded by distributaries of two major rivers, Brahmaputra and Meghna. The city has been subjected to periodic flooding since its early days due to these river system and low topography. Flooding of the city is mainly caused by spillover from surrounding rivers as well as internal water logging problems throughout of the city. Flood mitigation is an important issue in land use planning. Remote sensing could provide timely and low-cost information on floods and land use status whereas GIS is an excellent tool in handling information in land management and flood mitigation. This study was carried out to use remote sensing and GIS technologies to create flood vulnerability map of Dhaka city. Landsat TM data was used to generate a land cover, and JERS-SAR andADEOS-AVNIR data were combined to map flooded area in a normal flood event. Combining them with population data a population distribution map was produced according to landuse types. Subsequently, this outcome was compared with flooded area mapped using satellite data in creating population that is in risk during a normal flood event. Further, this map was compared with Dhaka City Master Plan to recognize the adequacy of the plan in flood mitigation aspect.