Overview

This project maps the exposure and vulnerability of pregnant women in Bangladesh's low lying, flood risk areas. Bangladesh's terrain is largely flat and sits less than 10 meters above sea level, making it one of the most flood exposed countries in the world, and pregnant women are among the most vulnerable populations during flood events, facing elevated risk of maternal complications and death.

By overlaying elevation data against birth intensity data, the project identifies where high numbers of births coincide with the lowest, most flood prone terrain.

The resulting map series moves from a national elevation and birth intensity picture down to the specific districts where that overlap is most severe, translating a broad climate vulnerability story into a targeted maternal health and resilience planning question.

Data & Framing

The analysis combines three data sources: elevation from the ASTER Global Digital Elevation Model (38 tiles merged and clipped to Bangladesh), birth counts from WorldPop's 1km gridded births dataset, and administrative boundaries from the Humanitarian Data Exchange (HDX).

Map Series

Key Findings

The analysis surfaced four districts in northeastern Bangladesh, Netrakona, Sunamganj, Kishoreganj, and Habiganj, as the highest risk areas, where large shares of district land area combine low elevation with high birth concentrations. These findings point to where maternal health infrastructure and flood resilience planning could have the most impact.