M. A. Ali, S. M. Seraj and S. Ahmad (eds): ISBN 984-823-002-5 Delineation of Flood Damaged Zones of Dhaka City Based on the 1998 Flood by Using GIS Mohammad A. Mohit and Shakil Akther Department of Urban and Regional Planning Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology, Dhaka-1000, Bangladesh Abstract The 1998 flood in Bangladesh was an unprecedented event of its kind in terms of duration, inundation of areas and damages. In Dhaka City alone, more than 70% of the city area was inundated and about 60% city population was under inundation for about 10 weeks – the longest time in memory. The city experienced colossal loses in housing, infrastructure, industry, commerce and education sectors. The total damage was estimated at Taka 2.0 billion or US$ 41.0 million. The experience of the 1998 flood suggests that the city has to be saved from recurrent floods by adopting both structural and non-structural measures for flood mitigation. Since structural measures are very expensive and time-consuming, non-structural measures such as flood damage zoning may provide a basis for planning disaster mitigation in the city. Considering this, the present study has attempted to delineate the 1998 flood affected city wards into three flood damage zones based on composite damage value derived from five sectors of the city. These flood damage zones are: low, moderate and high. The planning implications of this zoning exercise are – direct development at safer places of the city, and formulation of land use policies and planning standards to guide development in low and moderate flood damage zones so that the city suffers minimum damages from future floods. INTRODUCTION Although Bangladesh is predominantly a rural country with 75 per cent people living in rural area compared to 25 per cent of urban population, flooding Engineering Concerns of Flood 303