Consultancy Services for Preliminary Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) of Jol Nishorgo-Integrated Hydro-Ecological Diversity Development for Digun Water Retention Area, Dhaka

Jol Nishorgo project lies under the Dhaka North City Corporation in the Digun Mouza surrounded by the Uttara 3rd Phase in the North, Mirpur Cantonment in the east, Eastern Housing project on the South-east and the Turag River on the west. It is an urban natural oasis of 750 acres full of opportunities in the dense fabric of Dhaka. Dhaka, as we know, was once a city of rivers and canals. Through years of negligence and misuse, the water bodies in and around Dhaka city has been polluted, encroached, and filled up by private and even government entities. It is now or never that we need to step forward to protect the remaining water bodies of the city that includes this large water retention area in Digun Mouza. Including and conserving water bodies in the city fabric encourages biodiversity, oxygen replenishment, increase of ground water table, and also creates an urban void that is so scarce in a metropolitan city like Dhaka.

The scope of work of the EIA includes:

§  Review of relevant all documents and data/information from secondary sources, and identifies gaps to be filled, relevant to the environmental screening needs from field surveys.

§  Provide a description of the environmental baseline (such as baseline data on physical, biological/ecological and socio-economic characteristics of the subproject site along with area of influence).

§  Represent the field surveys where include baseline (air, noise, surface water and ground/drinking water) environmental quality monitoring at representative and sensitive locations, and identification of macro-level environmental issues within the Sub-project’s influence area.

§  Collect information on environmentally sensitive locations on and along the sub-projects as well as within the sub-project’s influence area.

§  Arrange consultation with the local people especially project affected persons (PAPs) to find out their opinions about the sub-projects.

§  Analysis of alternatives to the proposed sub-projects.

§  Identify and assessment of potential environmental impacts due to implementation of the sub-projects.

§  Conduct preliminary analysis of impacts and management measures of the nature, scale and magnitude of the impacts that the sub-project is likely to cause on the environment and classify the same using established methods.

§  Develop Environmental Management Plan (EMP) including Monitoring Plan for successfully implementing the mitigation/enhancement measures.

§  Prepare an EIA report in accordance with the DOE safeguard policies and guidelines and approved TOR.