Plant species diversity and present structure of roof top garden in Dhaka city

The study was conducted within the DAE projected 4 metropolitan area to know the structure of roof top garden and diversity of plant species contributing to food security, socio-economic importance along with the problems of roof gardening practices. Both primary and secondary data were collected with reconnaissance survey, direct observation, key informant interview, questionnaire survey and group discussions. The collected data were analyzed by using SPSS and MS Excel. The roof top garden of Dhaka city posses high plant species diversity where Shannon-Weaver diversity index was 3.84. Mango, beli, brinjal, patabahar and pudina were found most prevalent in their respective category. Inter species diversity was the highest (0.799) in the vegetable species and lowest in medicinal species (0.795). Sixty two point five percent gardeners were interested in a rising roof top garden because they think that gardening products consumption are healthy. Garden owners faced pest attack problems during gardening practices which destroyed the products severely. Manpower seems to be a problem in some houses to look after the garden; in that cases paid services should be provided to continue the gardening activities. Adequate training, motivation and sustainable management are required to encourage the city people in practicing roof top garden to improve plant species diversity elsewhere in Bangladesh.