Designing and procuring Dhaka’s sustainable water supply project, Bangladesh

Rapid urbanisation of Dhaka in Bangladesh has led to over-abstraction of groundwater and shortages of drinking water. The US$1 billion ‘Dhaka environmentally sustainable water supply project’ aims to resolve this by providing raw water to the city from the Meghna River. The first construction package of a river intake, 22 km raw water pipeline and 500 Ml/day water treatment plant is due for completion in 2023, with three more packages currently under design. As of December 2020, two are bid and awaiting award, one will be tendered in the first quarter of 2021. Routing and constructing 100 km of pipelines up to 1.6 m in diameter through the city’s highly congested urban environment is proving extremely challenging, as is dealing with the geotechnical and seismic conditions and the need to cross major rivers while ensuring social and environmental safeguards. This paper describes how the challenges are being addressed in procuring and delivering a new sustainable water supply to a rapidly developing global megacity.