Welcome to a page focussed on Green Roads for Water in Bangladesh! This webpage aims to function as a knowledge base for professionals and practitioners working in the fields of road infrastructure, water management, and climate resilience. It offers interdisciplinary insights and practical guidance on adopting Nature-Based Solutions (NBS) to enhance the sustainability and resilience of rural infrastructure, and is part of the capacity strengthening components under the “Consultancy Services for Increasing Resilience of Rural Infrastructure and Local Communities through Green Roads Concept” project implemented by MetaMeta and ADSL, in close collaboration with LGED and supported by the GFDRR administered by World Bank.
Tailored guidelines on Green Roads for Water in Bangladesh are currently under development. As a step toward this, the Assessment Report (May 2025) examines opportunities with LGED to systematically integrate water management into road infrastructure in different parts of the country, whilst at the same time preserving and even improving the transport functions of roads.
Plesae note that we are currently develoing this webpage futher – if you like to think along, please contact us at David.Mornout@gopa.eu or Frank.vanSteenbergen@gopa.eu.
Key documents
- LGED Climate Resilient Rural Road Manual
- LGED Road Design Standard 2021
- Guideline for implementatoin of rural roads and culverts maintenance program
- LGED guidelines on roadside tree plantations (in Bangla)
- Bangladesh: Climate-Resilient Infrastructure Assessment (Gall, S.S., Adnan, M.S.G., Peard, A., Paszkowski, A., Adshead, D., Cançado, D., Diaz, S., Saha, C.R., Jain., N., Istiaque, T., Hall, J.W., Haque, S., Kohler, S., Rector, I. 2022. Bangladesh: Climate-resilient infrastructure assessment. University of Oxford, United Nations Office for Project Services (UNOPS), Center for Environmental and Geographic Information Systems (CEGIS) and the Global Center on Adaptation (GCA)
A gated culvert to help manage water (levels)
Blogs
- Why the Government’s Roadside Tree Plantations programme is important for Bangladesh – TheWaterChannel (Andrew Zakharenka, World Bank, Environment, Natural Resources and Blue Economy Global Practice )
- Choking bridges: the death of tidal rivers – TheWaterChannel (Md. Saif Uddin, Lutfor Rahman and Frank van Steenbergen)
- Roadside social forestry: managing road side commons – TheWaterChannel (Kiran Sankar Sarker and Frank van Steenbergen)
- ‘Green Roads’ Are Plowing Ahead, Buffering Drought and Floods – Yale E360 (Ben Goldfarb)
- Coastal Bangladesh: Roads to the Rescue? – TheWaterChannel (Cecilia Borgia)
Videos
- The Promise of Roads for Polder Water Management and Flood Protection – TheWaterChannel
- Bangladesh- Roads, Drainage, and Farm Output – TheWaterChannel
- Bangladesh-Strengthening Polder Embankment Roads – TheWaterChannel
- Roads to the Rescue: Harvesting Rainwater Through Improved Road Management, Adbdul Saleh, Bangladesh (Global Resilience Partnership)
Other useful outputs and reports
- Bangladesh Green Roads Profile – Developed by Asian Transport Outlook
- Bio-Engineering Operational Guidelines – Focussing on the Hill Tracts in Bangladesh (ADB)
- Standard Specifications for Bio-Engineering Works – Focussing on the Hill Tracts in Bangladesh (ADB)
- Bio-Engineering Training Manual for Managers – Training for LGED Policy and Management Level (ADB)
- Bio-Engineering Training Manual for Engineers & Bioengineering Nature-based Solutions for Linear Infrastructure Slope Stabilization and Protection – Training for LGED Engineers (ADB)
- Guideline on Effectiveness and Performance Evaluation of Rural Paved Roads of LGED V2 28 April 2025 (1) (Islamic University of Technology (IUT))
- Importance of Roadside Tree Planting in Bangladesh (Andrew Zakharenka, World Bank)
A tree-lined road in Bangladesh. Trees block dust, reduce erosion, and absorb runoff.
This web page focusses on Green Roads for Water in Bangladesh. It has been prepared under the “Consultancy Services for Increasing Resilience of Rural Infrastructure and Local Communities through Green Roads Concept” project, implemented by MetaMeta and ADSL for the Local Government Engineering Department (LGED) in Bangladesh and the World Bank,. and aims to set the foundation for systematically integrating water management and climate resilience in road development. Under this project, country-specific Guidelines on Green Roads for Water are being developed.
Last modified: August 12, 2025