Socio-ecological resilience in heritage urbanism: hydro-cultural socio-ecological system in the Historic Mosque City of Bagerhat, Bangladesh

Historic Mosque City of Bagerhat, a 15th-century deltaic urban system in Bangladesh, exemplifies adaptive resilience through an integrated hydro-architectural design that mitigated flood risks and hydrological variability. Unlike reactive engineering solutions, its resilience emerged from coordinated subsystems: hierarchical reservoirs moderating water flow, climatically adapted architectural forms enabling passive regulation, and governance structures ensuring long-term maintenance. The study introduces the Hydro-Cultural Socio-Ecological System (HC-SES) framework, combining GIS-based morphometric analysis of 54 urban elements with expert-weighted indicator modeling to quantify adaptive capacity. Findings reveal that Bagerhat’s design embedded climatic adaptation structurally, offering a model for climate-resilient heritage management in vulnerable deltaic environments.

Hasan, Md. R., & Ahmad, M. M. (2026). Socio-ecological resilience in heritage urbanism: hydro-cultural socio-ecological system in the Historic Mosque City of Bagerhat, Bangladesh. Built Heritage, 10(1). https://doi.org/10.1186/s43238-026-00286-4