Exploring the Potentials of Community Gardens as Green Space on Vacant Land in Khulna City

Abstract

Community garden (CG) is a form of urban green space. It provides social, economic, health and environmental benefits to the urban people in a city. Bangladesh's third largest city is Khulna, which is dominated by agriculture, two of the Wards of this city namely Ward no. 17 and Ward no. 20 are selected as the study area for this study. In many established and developing countries, community gardening is a common feature of urban development, but it is a new concept in Bangladesh. The study aims at exploring the potentials i.e., factors or favorable reasons of introducing community gardens in Khulna City. A wide range of related literature on community gardens are reviewed. A total of 300 households of the study Wards are surveyed through semi-structured questionnaire, key informant interviews of urban planners, civil engineers, architects, agriculturist, environmentalist and sociologist are conducted with review of Khulna City master plans, and other reports and publications. The study finds that approximately 3. 67 acres and 2.43 acres land in Ward no. 17 and Ward no. 20 remain vacant respectively. Also, after knowing the pros and cons of CG, 58.33% people in Ward no. 17 and 60% people of Ward no. 20 become interested to participate in CG. If it is possible to utilize the vacant land for community gardening, community gardens on one acre land having 17 decimal or 10.30 katha land of each community garden will be capable to sequestrate about 3.5 tons of carbon per year and depending on the size and duration of rain event, will be able to hold about 2000-10000 cubic ft. of storm water per year. The study also proposes some sites for the development of community gardens in future.