Spatial transition dynamics of urbanization and Rohingya refugees’ settlements in Bangladesh

Urbanization needs to conceptualize land use policy beyond the city boundaries. It might be explained by exploring complex and interconnected interdependencies in regional key driving factors that can have tele-coupling effects during sudden shocks. Over one million Rohingya have settled in the rural/forest area in Cox’s Bazar for locational proximity and comparatively easy escape from Myanmar after domestic conflicts. This study aims to explore the spatial dimension of urbanization in a regional transition context focusing on the newly built refugee settlements in the south-eastern coastal area of Bangladesh. Additional, we also identify further research scopes and gaps in the context of the case study. Analysis of openly available global data products from historical built-up expansion from 1975 to 2021 suggests that refugee settlements impact spatial development intensity (annual rate ⁓2.55 ha/year) and population density (annual rate ⁓9431 person/year) dimensions, which have a transition (rural-to-urban) of a greater regional scale than local urbanization. Our results from the expert-based key informant interviews have a broad agreement with the quantitative findings; however, the environmental: deforestation, economic: increasing business and employment opportunities and daily living expenses; and socio-cultural impacts: increasing conflict between host and refugee communities due to prostitution, drug dealing, and insecurity, are more local than findings from the geospatial analysis. Therefore, the local development policies need an urgent adjustment to comply with the local and regional balances in the above factors, along with that international development actors may also need attentive measures in the policy formulation. Further investigations in scenario-based urbanization dynamics are required to avoid an urban desert initiated in the absence or relocation of refugee settlement. Similar kinds of studies may also be replicated even in prosperous global North countries in order to conceptualize the spatial transformative process of rapid migration influx on urbanization with innovative open data in the absence of up-to-date official datasets and adoptions of mixed methods approaches with related actors including policymakers.