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Rapid urbanization and changes in land use land cover (LULC) have affected the thermal character of cities across the globe. Researchers found that Remote Sensing (RS) based urban biophysical composition-vegetation coverage, built-up area coverage, impervious surface coverage, soil fractions can significantly explain land surface temperature (LST) variation both at a local and regional scale. Taking Dhaka City, Bangladesh, as an example, this study aimed at exploring the effect of biophysical composition on LST in the year 2020 and find out Urban Heat Island (UHI) clusters with different LST setting using spatial autocorrelation technique. We found that LST presented a significant positive correlation with Normalized Difference Built-up Index (NDBI), road percentage, and negative correlation with Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), Normalised Difference Water Index (NDWI), Normalised Difference Bareness Index (NDBaI), porosity, water percentage, open space percentage. Further, the study conducted local Moran's I and Hot Spots (Getis-Ord-Gi statistics) analysis to find out the location of UHI clusters. Findings showed that 34 % of neighborhoods fall within one of the four spatial patterns of UHI clusters. Study findings would help urban planners and policymakers to have cogent understating on the relationship between urban thermal behavior, and its surface biophysical composition at fine spatial scales and hopes to provide a valuable reference for community planning, resource allocation, and sustainable development.

Water is another name of life. The standard of quality of life in an urban area is much dependent on the extent of the availability of drinking water. Water supply is the basic responsibility of any city or town authority. Getting standard quality water is the basic need of the people. In Bangladesh, people who are living in urban areas receive piped water supply. A planned water supply system is compulsory for serving urban people with an adequate quantity of supply water of good quality. Comilla Municipality started supplying water in 1925 with few distribution mains. After forming a new Comilla City Corporation (CoCC) in 2011, the water supply system was newly maintained and operated jointly by DPHE (Department of Public Health and Engineering) and CoCC. But the planning has drawbacks and the amount of pure water supply is inadequate compared to the need. Roughly 30% of families in slums suffer from acute water shortages for daily requirements inside CoCC area. This unhygienic condition causes severe health problems for these people. Urban expansion is prevalent with the constant increase in population but water supply provision is not increasing at the same rate. Even though the urban area is expanding constantly, the political boundary is an area of 53.04 km2 which was 37.50 km2 in 1982. The growth of built-up areas expands over the political area. The expansion of residential areas to the northern part of the city is the main problem for decreased agricultural land.

The geographical location and development of Bangladesh means that the country is vulnerable to tropical cyclones. Cyclones are becoming more frequent and severe due to the effects of climate change [1]. Since 2007, more than 5000 people have died, and damage runs into billions of dollars due to cyclones. This study aims to conduct an assessment of early preparation measures on cyclonic events since the 1970s with an emphasis on cyclone Amphan, May 2020 in Bangladesh. The study adopted a desk-based systematic survey of secondary literature. Technological advancement and better communication improve early warning significantly. However, the results show that the disaster preparedness to reduce the effect of cyclonic disaster has many limitations which need to be addressed, particularly by (i) involvement of mosques’ Imams (leaders) and school teachers in warning dissemination management since they are the most respected people in the society and, (ii) awareness of, and improved confidence in early warning and evacuation orders with (iii) gender issues addressed to facilitate equality in decision making. The quantity and quality of cyclone shelters need to be improved to ensure sufficient space. There appears to be a role for security forces in the emergency evacuation process as they have proven effective during Covid-19, where they were deployed to ensure that citizens did not leave home unnecessarily, which minimized the death toll. Continuous review and research on disaster risk reduction needs to be conducted, at all stages of cyclonic disaster management as increased severity and frequency of cyclones unavoidable for Bangladesh.

This paper outlines the necessity of planning and design provisions on urban built environment from children’s understanding and aspirations’ perspective. Their understanding and aspirations are analyzed through survey and a result presentation was prepared using research tools like mind maps, place representation and annotated drawings of dream neighborhood by 271 children of class 5 and class 8 from three renowned schools of Khulna, Bangladesh. Khulna, as a divisional city, is under rapid urbanization process, therefore, facing mounting pressure to build a child-friendly and livable environment which will support its growing urban population and future generations. Thereby, identifying children’s understanding of built environment and highlighting their aspirations, this paper also provides solution measures for future planning and design within its scope. Thereafter, with a systematic review of Khulna Development Authority prepared structure plan, referring to the aspired child friendly built environment issues, it has been found that most of the planning provisions are available inside the plan document. However, zoning and development control mechanisms as well as maintenance of existing provisions lack the goodwill of respective authorities. Finally, this study reflects that children’s participation in the planning process and the level of their cognitive perception is crucial to achieve a sustainable and child friendly built environment.

Bangladesh is one of the most earthquake vulnerable countries in the world. As Bangladesh is located near to the boundary of two active plates (Indian plate in the west and Eurasian plate in the east and north) the country has invariably been under threat of an earthquake that may be so harmful that may kill people to less than a moment. With the frequency of earthquakes on the increase, it is natural for people to be scared as specialists consider them to be warning of what lies ahead. Vulnerability of Lalmatia against earthquakes is stressed using Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) and multi-criterion analysis in this study. The APH allows decision-makers to model a complex problem in a hierarchical structure showing the relationship of the goal, objectives (criteria), sub-objectives, and alternatives. In this method six affecting factors against earthquake vulnerability in five subcategories has been considered as like as construction year, population, road width, building use, area of parcel and building vulnerability. The Analytical Hierarchical Process (AHP) model is also applying for determining the weight and priority of the vulnerability factors contribution to the lives of individuals. This research finally reveals some buildings that are ‘very high’ vulnerable and refers to detail assessment for first step plan and some buildings are ‘high’ vulnerable and also refers to detail assessment in the second step plan. Rest of the buildings are considered less vulnerable for the screening process. The retrofitting of structural components is conducted for not only an individual component or groups of components. The good performance of the entire structural system must be ensured. Retrofitting strategy is determined based on the results of technical assessment. The indicators and model of this study has contributed in the vulnerability assessment as well as initiate mitigation efforts against earthquake of Dhaka city.

The success of decentralisation highly depends on improving local government accountability. Although a decentralisation process exists in Bangladesh, the issue of accountability is a major challenge for urban development planning in this country. This paper identifies whether there are impacts related to the arrangement of decentralisation in urban development planning and the promotion of accountability issues and practises in Bangladesh. Using a mixed-method research strategy, this study evaluates the performance of three municipal entities and how they ensure accountability in their urban development-planning activities. Findings show that local government organisations are more accountable than other entities that have been delegated to perform these activities and that have been devolved through decentralisation in Bangladesh. This study also identifies that pro-accountability arrangements cannot be expected to spontaneously take place as a result of the devolution of the decentralisation process, but they need to be intentionally structured. This paper concludes that where single form of decentralised organisation exists, there is no problem of upward accountability. However, where two different forms of decentralised organisations exist, the problem of upward and downward accountability prevails to a larger extent. Therefore, this study recommends active citizen participation and it also advocates for a better coordination mechanism in cases where a multi-layered organisational form of decentralisation in urban development exists in Bangladesh.

The geographical location and development of Bangladesh means that the country is vulnerable to tropical cyclones. Cyclones are becoming more frequent and severe due to the effects of climate change [1]. Since 2007, more than 5000 people have died, and damage runs into billions of dollars due to cyclones. This study aims to conduct an assessment of early preparation measures on cyclonic events since the 1970s with an emphasis on cyclone Amphan, May 2020 in Bangladesh. The study adopted a desk-based systematic survey of secondary literature. Technological advancement and better communication improve early warning significantly. However, the results show that the disaster preparedness to reduce the effect of cyclonic disaster has many limitations which need to be addressed, particularly by (i) involvement of mosques’ Imams (leaders) and school teachers in warning dissemination management since they are the most respected people in the society and, (ii) awareness of, and improved confidence in early warning and evacuation orders with (iii) gender issues addressed to facilitate equality in decision making. The quantity and quality of cyclone shelters need to be improved to ensure sufficient space. There appears to be a role for security forces in the emergency evacuation process as they have proven effective during Covid-19, where they were deployed to ensure that citizens did not leave home unnecessarily, which minimized the death toll. Continuous review and research on disaster risk reduction needs to be conducted, at all stages of cyclonic disaster management as increased severity and frequency of cyclones unavoidable for Bangladesh.

Background COVID-19 pandemic outbreak is an unprecedented shock throughout the world, which has generated a massive social, human, and economic crisis. Identification of risk factors is crucial to prevent the COVID-19 spread by taking appropriate countermeasures effectively. Therefore, this study aimed to identify the potential risk factors contributing to the COVID-19 incidence rates at the district-level in Bangladesh. Method Spatial regression methods were applied in this study to fulfill the aim. Data related to 28 demographic, economic, built environment, health, and facilities related factors were collected from secondary sources and analyzed to explain the spatial variability of this disease incidence. Three global (ordinary least squares (OLS), spatial lag model (SLM), and spatial error model (SEM)) and one local (geographically weighted regression (GWR)) regression models were developed in this study. Results The results of the models identified four factors: percentage of the urban population, monthly consumption, number of health workers, and distance from the capital city, as significant risk factors affecting the COVID-19 incidence rates in Bangladesh. Among the four developed models, the GWR model performed the best in explaining the variation of COVID-19 incidence rates across Bangladesh, with an R2 value of 78.6%. Conclusion Findings and discussions from this research offer a better insight into the COVID-19 situation, which helped discuss policy implications to negotiate the future epidemic crisis. The primary policy response would be to decentralize the urban population and economic activities from and around the capital city, Dhaka, to create self-sufficient regions throughout the country, especially in the north-western region.