Survival Strategies for Natural Water Flow and Its Effect on Urban Drainage Network, A Case Study on KCC

Md. Ijadur Rahman, Assistant Secretary, Khulna Development Authority (KDA) email: as_kda@yahoo.com, Telephone no. 041-7225151-3-(265)(ext) Md. Tanvir Ahmed, Assistant Town Planner, Khulna Development Authority (KDA) email: tanvir_planner@yahoo.com, Telephone no. 041-7225151-3-(241) (ext) Montasir Mamun, Assistant Engineer, KDA. email: montasirkanok@yahoo.com, Telephone no. 041-72255151-3-(294) (ext) Brigadier General Dr. Habibur Rahman Kamal, psc, Chairman, KDA. email: hrkamal@gmail.com, Telephone no. 041-722059, Fax- 041-725154 Keywords: Urbanization, Wastewater, Rain water, Sea level rise, Natural drainage system, waste water management. Requested Destination: Oral presentation Abstract At present the population growth rate of Bangladesh is 1.32 percent while the urbanization growth rate is 3.1 percent. These combined growths will demand more water producing more waste water. Waste water and rain water in the monsoon cause local flood in most of the cities in Bangladesh including Khulna. Khulna, one of seven Divisional Metropolitan towns, the 3rd largest city, is encircled by rivers namely the Bhairab, the Rupsha and the Mayur. The waste and rain water, in normal condition, flow naturally to this river system. But the rise of mean sea level and the siltation in the river- bed are causing water to flow from rivers to the townships especially during high tide periods and monsoon that causes damages to the locality and make city dwellers more vulnerable. Evidently natural drainage system will not be the way out to protect city from flood during overflow of the rivers. Usually natural flow of water depends on development activities which give snapshot of the landscape of an area. In Khulna, development flourishes on the basis of river and road transport network. As a result spatial pattern of urbanization reveal ribbon development within city area. Functionally Khulna City is divided by a major highway named Khulna Jessore Highway into eastern and western part. Increased development activities in Khulna demands more services. Among all the services waste water management will be major issue due to overflow of river causes flood which will hamper the long term development activities throughout the city. To utilize limited resources it is very much inexpensive and is easy to construct all the channels as directed as natural slope. Reconnaissance survey reveals that the area is low lying and the drainage channels are constructed following the natural slope to drain out waste water into the river. Having the benefit from natural slope and to protect the city area from overflow of the river, this paper will find out the waste water management alternatives.

Corresponding author: Md. Tanvir Ahmed, Assistant Town Planner, Khulna Development Authority (KDA) email: tanvir_planner@yahoo.com, Telephone no. 041-7225151-3-(241) (ext)