GovTwin / Institution

Sylhet District

Local Gov

Sylhet sits at the foot of the Meghalaya hills in the northeast, the wettest corner of Bangladesh, where haor wetlands, tea estates, and a remittance-fed urban economy coexist. The district city is the divisional hub, with the fastest-urbanizing built-up footprint in the region and a wealth standing that is middling for the country but uneven between the prosperous city and the flood-exposed rural haor belt.

Wealth rank 45/64 (1 = poorest district) Warming +0.97°C (1980s–2020s) Air NO₂ #58/64 (1 = most polluted) Night-lights +60% (2014–23 activity) Built-up 61 km² Forest loss 1,142 ha (2001–23) Rainfall 4,171 mm/yr

Indicators: Meta RWI (HDX); ERA5-Land; MODIS; Sentinel-5P; VIIRS night-lights; GHSL; Hansen v1.11; CHIRPS v2.0. Exposure: GloFAS v2.1, FABDEM, MODIS LST, ACAG PM2.5, WorldPop 2020.

Problems and issues

  1. climate disaster Extreme rainfall (about 4,171 mm annually, among the highest in Bangladesh) combined with rapid hill runoff from Meghalaya drives recurrent flash floods that submerge the haor lowlands and the city alike, as in the catastrophic 2022 monsoon. So what: Flash floods destroy the single boro rice harvest and inundate the divisional city, repeatedly displacing households and erasing remittance-built assets in days. Source: CHIRPS v2.0 precipitation (UCSB Climate Hazards Group) via Google Earth Engine
  2. urbanization Built-up surface has expanded about 34% since 2000 to roughly 61 sq km, the largest urban footprint of the four Sylhet-division districts, concentrating people and capital in a flood-prone basin with limited drainage capacity. So what: Unplanned expansion onto wetland and low ground raises both flood exposure and the cost of every future inundation in the divisional capital. Source: GHSL built-up surface (JRC) via Google Earth Engine
  3. water Despite the region's enormous rainfall, mapped permanent surface water is only about 12 sq km, because the haor system is intensely seasonal: deep flooding in monsoon, then drying down in the dry season, leaving little reliable year-round surface water for the dry months. So what: The feast-or-famine water regime complicates dry-season irrigation, fisheries, and household supply even in a district drenched by rain. Source: JRC Global Surface Water (permanent water) via Google Earth Engine
  4. economy Nightlight radiance grew only about 60%, ranking 59th of 64 districts for growth, signalling that the remittance-dependent economy has added little broad-based productive activity relative to faster-growing parts of the country. So what: Heavy reliance on overseas remittances without local industrial or service deepening leaves incomes exposed to Gulf labour-market shocks. Source: VIIRS nighttime lights (annual radiance) via Google Earth Engine
  5. climate disaster Near-surface air has warmed about 0.97 C, the steepest warming of the four districts, intensifying both monsoon rainfall extremes and dry-season heat stress on tea labour and haor farming. So what: A warmer atmosphere holds more moisture and sharpens the flood-then-heat cycle that the local agrarian economy is least able to absorb. Source: ERA5-Land reanalysis (Copernicus/ECMWF) via Google Earth Engine, district mean

Probable solutions

Upazilas (14)

Sylhet City Corporation Sylhet Sadar Beanibazar Bishwanath Dakshin Surma Balaganj Companiganj Fenchuganj Golapganj Gowainghat Jointapur Kanaighat Zakiganj Nobigonj