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Urban forests baseline and ecosystem benefits of a tropical metropolis: case of Dhaka, Bangladesh

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Abstract

Dhaka, one of the world’s most crowded megacities, is undergoing rapid urban development that has led to an alarming and fast decline of urban forests and trees. Urban trees provide critical services to city landscapes, including the provision of shade, reducing air pollution through absorption of air pollutants, managing wastewater runoff and surface water, and absorbing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. There is very little information on the extent, characteristics, and ecological value of Dhaka’s urban trees, which limits policymakers in designing sustainable measures that protect urban trees for the future. To address this information gap, we conducted Dhaka’s first-ever urban tree inventory that provides robust baseline data to set and monitor goals for improving urban tree cover and access to urban tree benefits. We used the i-Tree Eco modeling tool to estimate the economic value of selected ecosystem services urban trees provide. We found that the tree cover in Dhaka is currently below 11%, which is much lower than its potential as a tropical city. There are 1.3 million trees, or about one tree per 7 people. The inventory identified 110 tree species belonging to 33 families in Dhaka, and more than 60% of the tree species are exotic. Overall, urban trees provide an estimated USD 6.74 million per year in ecosystem benefits and store an additional estimated USD 3.19 million worth of carbon. The overall tree diversity is considered moderate to high based on several diversity indices. The three most dominant species of Dhaka are Mangifera indica, Swietenia mahagoni, and Cocos nucifera. This new baseline information equips policymakers to guide urban greening strategies and monitor progress towards city-level tree cover goals.

Data availability

Analytical codes and data supporting the findings are available in the GitHub repository, and this paper’s Supplementary Information. GitHub link : https://github.com/sahadeb-gis/DhakaUrbanTreeInventory. Should any raw files be needed, they will be made available from the corresponding author after this publication upon reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

We acknowledge the Bangladesh Forest Department for supporting throughout the process, and validation. We are also grateful to Dhaka North City Corporation, Dhaka South City Corporation, University of Chittagong, Bangladesh National Herbarium, Bangladesh Forest Research Institute, Green Savers, Davey Institute , and the data collection team for their contribution. This research was funded by USAID’s Community Partnerships to Strengthen Sustainable Development (Compass) Program implemented by USDA Forest Service International Programs and Trade.

Funding

This research was funded by USAID’s Community Partnerships to Strengthen Sustainable Development (Compass) Program (Award No 72038819T00002) implemented by USDA Forest Service International Programs and Trade.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Compass Program, Management and Engineering Technologies International, Inc.-METI, Dhaka, 1213, Bangladesh

    Sahadeb Chandra Majumder, Md. Shams Uddin &  Pinky Rani Sarkar

  2. Institute of Forestry and Environmental Sciences, University of Chittagong, Chittagong, 4331, Bangladesh

    Md. Akhter Hossain & Mohammed Kamal Hossain

  3. RIMS Unit, Bangladesh Forest Department, Dhaka, 1206, Bangladesh

    Md. Zaheer Iqbal, Md. Tariq Aziz, Md. Tauhidor Rahaman &  Md. Bablu Zzaman

  4. Department of Environmental Sciences, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA, 22903, USA

    Pinky Rani Sarkar

  5. Asia Pacific Program, Management and Engineering Technologies International, Inc.-METI, Washington, DC, 20227, USA

    Kristofer Johnson

  6. Bangladesh National Herbarium, Dhaka, 1216, Bangladesh

    Khandakar Kamrul Islam

  7. Green Savers, Dhaka, 1207, Bangladesh

    Ahsan Rony

  8. U.S. Agency for International Development, Dhaka, 1212, Bangladesh

    Shahadat Hossain Shakil & Md Ashraful Haque

  9. Development Planning Unit, Bangladesh Forest Department, Dhaka, 1206, Bangladesh

    Md. Zaglul Hossain

  10. The Davey Institute, Philadelphia, PA, 19103, USA

    Jason Henning

  11. USDA Forest Service International Programs and Trade, Washington, DC, 20227, USA

    Liza Vida C. Paqueo & Justin Green

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  1. Sahadeb Chandra Majumder
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  2. Md. Shams Uddin
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  3. Md. Akhter Hossain
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  4. Md. Zaheer Iqbal
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  5. Pinky Rani Sarkar
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  7. Md. Tariq Aziz
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  8. Md. Tauhidor Rahaman
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  9. Md. Bablu Zzaman
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  10. Mohammed Kamal Hossain
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Contributions

**Sahadeb Chandra Majumder: ** Conceptualization, Methodology, Software, Validation, Formal analysis, Investigation, Data Curation, Writing – Original Draft, Visualization, Supervision, Project administration. **Md. Shams Uddin: ** Conceptualization, Methodology, Writing – Review & Editing, Supervision, Project administration, Funding acquisition, **Md. Akhter Hossain: ** Formal analysis, Investigation, Data Curation, Writing – Review & Editing, Visualization, **Md. Zaheer Iqbal: ** Conceptualization, Methodology, Writing – Review & Editing, Supervision **Pinky Rani Sarkar: ** Methodology, Software, Validation, Formal analysis, Investigation, Data Curation, Writing – Review & Editing, Visualization **Kristofer Johnson: ** Resources, Writing – Review & Editing **Md. Tariq Aziz: ** Methodology, Software, Investigation, Data Curation, **Md. Tauhidor Rahaman: ** Methodology, Validation, Investigation, Data Curation, **Md. Bablu Zzaman: ** Methodology, Validation, Investigation, Data Curation, **Mohammed Kamal Hossain: ** Investigation, **Khandakar Kamrul Islam: ** Investigation, Data Curation, **Ahsan Rony: ** Investigation, Resources, Data Curation. **Shahadat Hossain Shakil: ** Resources, Writing – Review & Editing, Project administration, Funding acquisition. **Ashraful Haque: ** Resources, Writing – Review & Editing, Project administration, Funding acquisition. **Md. Zaglul Hossain: ** Resources, Writing – Review & Editing, Supervision, Project administration. **Jason Henning: ** Resources, Writing – Review & Editing. **Liza Vida C. Paqueo: ** Resources, Writing – Review & Editing. **Justin Green** : Conceptualization, Resources, Writing – Review & Editing, Supervision, Project administration, Funding acquisition.

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Sahadeb Chandra Majumder.

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Majumder, S.C., Uddin, M.S., Hossain, M.A. et al. Urban forests baseline and ecosystem benefits of a tropical metropolis: case of Dhaka, Bangladesh.
Sci Rep (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-026-46985-x

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-026-46985-x

Keywords

  • Tree inventory
  • Ecosystem services
  • i-Tree eco
  • Economics value
  • Urban forestry

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