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What-If

Explore what could change.

Choose a place, a documented issue and one of its documented interventions, then set how far it goes.

ILLUSTRATIVE SCENARIO — NOT A SCIENTIFIC PREDICTION. Built from documented causes, impacts and solutions plus general qualitative patterns. It contains no modelled numbers.

3 · Intervention
PilotScaledTransformative

Adopted across much of the area, with dedicated budgets and enforcement.

Illustrative scenario

What if Dhaka took a scaled approach to “Kiln modernisation”?

Starting point · documented

AirSeverity: Critical
Air pollution in Dhaka

Brick kilns, traffic, construction dust and regional pollution make dry-season air quality in Dhaka among the poorest of any major city.

The intervention · documented

Kiln modernisation

Replacing traditional kilns with cleaner technologies and promoting alternative building materials such as hollow blocks.

Reduces a leading dry-season emission source.

Schematic direction of change

Air quality tends to respond relatively quickly once emissions fall, although weather and regional sources still drive episodes.

Schematic, unitless illustration: relative pressure over time without the intervention compared with the intervention in place. Not based on measured data.NowLonger term →Relative pressure (unitless)
Without the intervention With the interventionSchematic shape only — no data, units or dates.

Causes this could address

  • Brick kilnsThousands of kilns around Dhaka burn coal and other fuels, particularly in older, less efficient designs.

Impacts that could ease

  • Respiratory and cardiovascular diseaseExposure to fine particulates is a leading environmental health risk in Bangladesh.
  • Health risks to childrenChildren are particularly vulnerable to impaired lung development and respiratory infection.

Wider reach at higher intensity is an assumption of this illustration.

How change might unfold

  1. Near term

    Visible changes near targeted sources, especially where monitoring is dense.

  2. Medium term

    Fewer severe episodes if reductions cover the main local and regional sources.

  3. Long term

    Health benefits accumulate as long-term exposure falls.

Faded stages are less likely to be reached at scaled intensity.

What this would not change

Pollution transported from outside the area, and seasonal meteorology, remain beyond local control.

What it depends on

  • Sustained funding and institutional capacity
  • Consistent enforcement and monitoring
  • Local stakeholder support
  • Participation of affected communities

ILLUSTRATIVE SCENARIO — NOT A SCIENTIFIC PREDICTION. Built from documented causes, impacts and solutions plus general qualitative patterns. It contains no modelled numbers.

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