Re-naturing cities through water-centric development: evaluating a canal restoration project in Narayanganj City, Bangladesh

The concept of ‘re-naturing cities’ promotes nature-based solutions for sustainable urban design; one of those being water-centric development with networks of blue (water bodies) and green (vegetation areas) aims to generate urban areas that support economic growth, strengthen social cohesion, and restore degraded ecosystems. Projects get implemented for revitalizing urban water bodies with multifunctional areas. This context demands to study water-centric development projects for evaluating their success of ‘re-naturing cities’ in terms of achieving sustainable goals. This research analyzes a part of a canal restoration project of Narayanganj City, Bangladesh, for investigating the development process and understanding its effectiveness in achieving sustainable goals. The study employs multiple qualitative tools for capturing users' views (emic analysis) and researchers' views (etic analysis). The combined understanding identifies that the project focuses primarily on adding an aesthetically pleasing element to the urban fabric, overlooking multiple socioeconomic and ecological possibilities of living with water.