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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 human-oriented urban development process significantly affects the thermal environment of cities and surrounding areas by transforming the eco-friendly land use and land cover (LULC) and increasing carbon emission. The impact of such effects is relatively higher in developing countries like Bangladesh, due to unplanned urbanization. The study aimed to examine the influences of land-specific carbon emissions (LCEs) on land surface temperature (LST) dynamics in the urban and suburban areas of Khulna city during 1998–2018. Landsat images of the year 1998, 2008, and 2018 were used to estimate LULC, LST, and LCEs change over the last two decades and documented the LCEs and LST change pattern in both urban and suburban areas. The association between LCEs and LST was examined through linear regression in the GIS environment. The experimental result indicates that (i) carbon emission sources in urban areas and carbon sinks in suburban areas have increased (ii) lowest LST was documented in carbon sinks and the highest LST in the carbon sources (iii) the correlation coefficients were 0.82651, 0.83771 and 0.89216 which indicates the strong significant impacts of LCEs on the increase of LST and become higher and higher from 1998 to 2018, (iv) LST responded highly to the increase of LCEs in the urban areas than in the suburban areas and increased LST of urban areas by 5.54 ◦C. The study signifies the necessity of taking proper policies and strategies immediately for sustainable urban development and the habitable sound environment.

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.

Education is a challenge for Physically Challenged Students (PCS). Accessibility in the buildup environments of university campus for PCS is a worldwide concern. A country can’t uplift its socio-economic conditions unless and until people from all level of the society get the equal access in every facilities and services provided by government. Every student with disability has the right to equal enjoyment and access in a residential university. In Bangladesh, increased numbers of students with disabilities have been accessed to higher educational opportunities. However, also the government has imposed some legal legislation for the education and the inclusive design for the PCS. So, this study concerns about the accessibility in higher educational institutions for PCS. This research has highlighted the accessibility condition of the buildup areas of the Jahangirnagar University campus in Bangladesh and the problems faced by the PCS which created because of the existing structural design. It also explores the relation between types of barriers and different structures in university for the PCS’s. At the end this study tries to provide some guidelines for ensuring better accessibility of the physically challenged students.

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.