Revival of Connection between the Kalshi Canal and Neighbouring Communities

Project idea

Kalshi Canal is a man-made waterway located in the northern part of Dhaka metropolitan city, Bangladesh. It is a relatively small canal that runs through the Kalshi residential area and connects to the Turag River.

The canal plays an important role in the drainage system of Dhaka, as it helps to manage the flow of rainwater and wastewater during the monsoon season. However, due to the rapid urbanization and industrialization of the city, the canal has become heavily polluted, which poses significant health risks to the people living in the surrounding areas.

The pollution of the Kalshi Canal is caused by a range of factors, including the discharge of untreated industrial and domestic wastewater, solid waste dumping, and encroachment along the canal banks. The pollution can affect both the water quality and the ecological health of the canal, including its aquatic life.
The idea was to address relevant problems of the canal and its surroundings and create a positive impact and approach towards some sort of solutions through urban interventions and landscape design.

Project description

The problems of the mentioned canal and its immediate surroundings are:
Uncontrolled waste disposal on the waterbody (which generates bad odour), lack of character in softscape, waterlogging and water clogging, lack of biodiversity in the canal and its surroundings, lack of walkability beside the canal, and no connection between the canal and its neighbouring inhabitants.
A macro-scale site visit helped the authors to observe and find more issues. The observations are that the canal is pretty narrow at multiple points, lack of public green adjacent to the canal and there are some informal settlements of urban poor adjacent to the canal, some of them have already taken initiatives of rooftop gardening or bamboo-stage vegetation beside the canal.
The design strategies that are proposed to solve these issues are: riparian buffer, community gardening, planting street trees, staged pathway by the canal, green roof, green pocket spaces near the canal and staged pathway, and wastewater treatment of the canal.

Technical information

Proposed riparian plants include vetiver grass, Indian mustard, watercress, neem, eggplant, tomato, bottle gourd, pumpkin, banana (already available at the site), spinach, beans, peppers, mango, papaya, guava, jackfruit, Palash (a native and important plant of that area), yellow iris, etc.