Paradigm of Eco-Urban-Agriculture for the Sustainable City: Integrating the Concept for Urban Dhaka

Abstract

The geographical location of Bangladesh is gifted with enormous natural recourse: water, alluvial land,
suitable climatic conditions for bio diversity and other natural assets. The capital, Dhaka, surrounded
by rivers on four sides, was once a blue-green-built environment offering a healthy living atmosphere for
its habitants. The city was dotted with huge and crisscrossed water bodies, a tolerable population density,
and enough open spaces. Urban and peri-urban areas of the city complemented its food demand which
subsequently maintained the environmental equilibrium. The modern concept of eco-urban-agriculture will
definitely be beneficial in such a dense city which is rapidly losing its livability by insensitive urbanization.
This paper will describe how a city could generate food, improve health, and utilize waste by furthering the
established urban-agriculture concept. It aims to develop an understanding of this concept in Bangladesh,
particularly in the dense urban fabric of Dhaka, by discussing the theoretical background of urban agriculture
and practiced models of eco-urban-agriculture in urban settings around the world.