Members’ Publication

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.

Affordable Housing, the basic human necessity has now become a critical problem in global cities with direct impacts on people's well-being. While a well-functioning housing market may augment the economic efficiency and productivity of a city, it may trigger housing affordability issues leading crucial economic and political crises side by side if not handled properly. In global cities e.g. Singapore and Hong Kong where affordable housing for all has become one of the greatest concerns of the Government, this issue can be tackled capably by the provision of public housing. In Singapore, nearly 90% of the total population lives in public housing including public rental and subsidized ownership, whereas the figure tally only about 45% in Hong Kong. Hence this study is an effort to scrutinizing the key drivers of success in affordable public housing through following a qualitative case study based research methodological approach to present successful experience and insight from different socio-economic and geo-political context. As a major intervention, this research has clinched that, housing affordability should be backed up by demand-side policies aiming to help occupants and proprietors to grow financial capacity e.g. subsidized rental and subsidized ownership can be an integral part of the public housing system to improve housing affordability

Dhaka, the capital and megacity of the developing country Bangladesh, has experienced a sharp rise in motorcycle users in the last decade, especially after the introduction of ridesharing services. Therefore, the morbidity and mortality rates of motorcycle crash injuries have also increased and become one of the major safety concerns. However, there is scant empirical evidence on motorcycle crash severity in the context of developing countries. Hence, this study was conducted to identify the factors that influenced the severity of motorcycle crashes in Dhaka. A binary logistic regression model was developed using motorcycle crash data of Dhaka over the period of 2006–2015 to identify the contributing factors of motorcycle crash severity. The model output showed that eleven factors significantly increased the probability of fatal motorcycle crashes. These factors were crashes occurring on weekends, during the rainy season, during dawn and night period, at non-intersections, on straight and flat roads, on highways, hit pedestrian type crashes, crashes involving motorcycles with no defect, crashes with heavier vehicles, crashes involving motorcyclists not wearing helmets, and drivers with alcohol suspicion. These findings would help to formulate prevention strategies to reduce the injury severity of motorcycle crashes in the developing countries.

MDPI Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute

The global discourse around architecture education emphasizes rethinking curricula for engaging more with social issues. The shift from creating star architects to socially responsive professionals necessitates examining different approaches to build skills, especially in the design studio, for encouraging a comprehensive system of inquiry for developing design solutions. In Jhenaidah, a secondary city in Bangladesh, fourth-year students participated in a design studio that tried to address critical urban issues and to generate design ideas using field research and community participation. This paper shares the experience of facilitating the design studio. The learning process and studio structure included exploration, examination, consultations, mapping, vision development and strategic planning for arriving at specific design proposals. The experience of working with a local government institution was an added learning of the studio. Pedagogical exploration from the studio reiterates the arguments for balancing rationalism and social responsiveness with creativity in architecture design studios.

Disasters have a direct and acquit effect on human lives and settlement. Assessment of natural movement in the high dense settlements becomes a crucial issue in terms of disaster management. Evacuation, as an intuitive and practically effective emergency rescue measure, has long been used and is expected to be enhanced to protect human populations against hazardous situations caused by these natural and man-made disasters. A well-defined and manageable plan is one of the prerequisites for successful implementation of an emergency evacuation is a life saving measure on disaster events. Haphazard urban growth in old Dhaka and increasing industrial load on specialized industrial zones like Dhaka export processing zone is an alarming marker for disaster preparedness for the city. As lacking in proper disaster management process, emergency evacuation system developed not so far. In the methodology, investigation has done through Michael Patton’s Utilization Focused Evaluation Model. The measurement and assessment of the effectiveness is based on three dimensional analyses: Consumers contentment Index, Public stuffs index and Collective worth. Considering the present situation, and is undertaken with different objectives of analyzing the existing emergency evacuation system of old Dhaka and DEPZ area. In the virtual effectiveness analysis, user satisfaction indexes/ Consumers contentment index (C.C.I.) score is 41, 47 and 45(out of 100) for Industrial, household and others respectively and Public Stuffs Index for industrial unit is 33, for Households Unit is 44.55 and for others unit is 48.72. All these score indicates the poor level of Emergency Evacuation Service of Old Dhaka and DEPZ. The study examine service level of present emergency support system, which are prominent variable to develop an effective emergency evacuation plan to reduce hazard impact on specific area.

Critical climate stress moments may be defined as those moments when households, communities, and their livelihood systems are vulnerable to climate related risks and hazards. This working paper examines critical climate stress moments due to specific climatic and biophysical causes experienced by the people in the Teesta River basin in India and Bangladesh. The Teesta, like other river basins of the Himalaya, has a fragile geology, as well as complex climate, ecosystems and socio-economic conditions. Critical moments can serve as a tool for communicating vulnerabilities and the challenges to sustainable lives and livelihoods, and to link vulnerability assessments with adaptation policy and action.

A relatively large number of Pakistanis known as the Bihari community have been stranded in Bangladesh since its independence in 1971. The unresolved repatriation problem is a consequence of deliberate procrastination and political indecision on the part of both the Bangladesh and Pakistan governments. The aim was to analyze and find out the housing and socio-economic conditions in addition to the other services provided to the Bihari people of Selil Colony, commonly known as the Bihari Colony of Rajshahi. Quantitative surveying followed by snowball and simple random sampling method was used for collecting data and the analysis and interpretation part was visually presented with graphs, bars, and cross tabulation using SPSS (Statistical Software for Social Science) software. The intensely bad condition of the Bihari people was found with poor housing conditions, very scarce employment in good sectors, low combined income of the family, comparatively high illiteracy rate, less utilization of the provided utility facilities in a healthy way and degrading condition of relief services. Day by Day, the situation is falling down. A kind step in view to recover this so long unresolved problem would be so generous from the government. This initiative might include the ways that make their lives happier, much more comfortable and lively through education and awareness.