India Takes Action to Address Mounting Heat Risks in Cities

Co-authored by Dr. Ritika Kapoor and Abhiyant Tiwari of NRDC India

Intense heat waves are becoming more frequent and severe across India, threatening public health, electricity grid reliability, agricultural yields, amongst other impacts. As these heat risks linked to climate change intensify, government leaders are taking steps to improve preparedness through strengthening of of national heat preparedness efforts and city-level Heat Action Plans (HAPs). Drawing lessons from Ahmedabad’s lifesaving HAP, authorities in India are ramping efforts up to improve extreme heat warning systems and emergency response planning. 

Usually, key HAP components include improving public awareness of heat-health harms through expanded community outreach; facilitating interagency coordination to better align city responses; building capacity amongst healthcare professionals to anticipate and treat heat-related illnesses; and initiating built environment adaptations, including passive measures such as cool roofs and urban greening, that can help to keep people cooler during life-threatening temperature spikes.

While momentum on these cooling strategies is building, local experts have identified an urgent need to better integrate and tailor landcover heat solutions into heat action plans. India’s National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) this week organized a brainstorming workshop on "Developing Framework for Heat Wave Mitigation" to advance the national dialogue on long-term heat response measures in the country’s quickly growing cities. Leading heat experts from government, academia, and civil society offered insights on how to translate best practices for addressing extreme heat into concrete actions on the ground.

Experts Highlight Heat Risks and Policy Opportunities

At the workshop Mr. Kamal Kishore of NDMA discussed the need for long-term heat response planning, while keeping in mind the need to prepare for India’s upcoming 2024 heat season. He highlighted the excess mortality that occurred last year due to heat in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh and the need for improvement in communication for inter-department agencies. Mr. Kishore also mentioned the need to have a multi-sectoral approach which is essential to mitigate the morbidity. Shri Kunal Sathyarthi, of NDMA underscored that the aim of heat planning is to achieve zero heat-related mortality—to achieve that goal, focused attention had to be brought to the incoming heat season by through advance engagement with heat-prone districts. 

The year-to-year experience of heat in India is ever-changing, and Dr. Naresh Kumar of the India Meteorological Department (IMD) highlighted differences in spatial pattern of 2022 and 2023 heatwaves, and attributed higher heat mortality in 2023 to delayed onset of the monsoon season. Dr. Kumar also mentioned most of the climate models are predicting heatwaves ahead of time, and that making use of those forecasts for advance planning from state agencies is crucial. A key challenge, according to him, remains the dissemination and translation of heat forecasts into actionable health recommendations for the public.

Dr. Roxy Mathew Koll of the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM) reiterated that because of climate change, heatwaves are here to stay and will likely intensify in the years to come. Based on an identification of regional hotspots from IMD’s maps, he argued for the development of a national heat management framework targeted at heat-prone districts. Dr. Koll also highlighted how  temperatures can fluctuate throughout the day and the need for policymakers to consider steadily warming night-time temperatures because warm nights make recuperation difficult.

A National Heat Management Framework Begins to Take Shape

Dr. Krishna Vats, Member, NDMA drew attention to the need to integrate long-term heat reduction efforts, including landcover and infrastructure adaptation, into current HAPs. Such actions can improve the durability of cooling solutions and expand the range of implementing partners for these plans in ways that foster enhanced community support. He advocated for inclusion of sector-specific interventions including solutions to reckon with the health, energy, power, urban infrastructure, public awareness, and community engagement challenges surrounding urban heat risks. Dr. Vats presented a pilot heat management framework that includes the following components: 

1. Early Warning System (EWS) and Forecasting: These systems can be implemented at a local level, and collaboration with IMD as a starting point is essential.
2. Health: The country must train more health workers in emergency response preparedness and to include the local hospitals.
3. Urban Planning: Landcover interventions such as urban greening, enhanced use of blue spaces (waterbodies), reflective materials on buildings, ventilated cooling and cool roofs can be taken up and incorporated into buildings bylaws.
4. Public Awareness: Enhancing public understanding of heat risks through stronger training of HAP stakeholders and evidence-based risk communication approaches.
5. Community-led interventions: Shaded spaces, Reusable water wells and engaging health workers
6. Financing Mechanisms: Securing financing for heat interventions is challenging, but local leaders can tap into central policy funds like the National Disaster Management Fund, while also looking into local government allocations and public-private partnerships.
7. Monitoring and Evaluation: Heat response actions must be better monitored for their effects to better understand what works, and why. Measurable indicators for tracking heat actions need to be established to improve the evidence base moving forward.
8. Scaling and Replicability: Identification of cost-effective local best practices that can scale up to better protect heat-prone areas nationwide is an urgent priority.

Building from these key elements, other leading voices offered insights on how to move the national heat preparedness agenda forward:

• Bijal Brahmbhatt of Mahila Housing Trust (MHT) emphasized the need to consider financing options for HAPs and the possibility of utilizing loss and damage funds. She also about opportunities to integrate cooling actions with local HAPs, bring in micro-level data on community cooling needs and taking advantage of local partnerships to enhance implementation cooling solutions.
• Dipa Singh Bagai and Abhiyant Tiwari of NRDC India highlighted the need to appoint local Nodal Officers to disseminate heat forecast information from IMD to the general public and the possibility of introducing of graded response plans to calibrate local responses to the relative severity of heat episodes, just like those that currently exist for spikes in air pollution. 
• Amit Prothi of the Coalition for Disaster Resilient Infrastructure (CDRI) India spoke about the importance of integrated planning frameworks where key sectors like health, urban infrastructure and education are represented, with IMD being the starting point for such consultations. Mr. Prothi spoke to the ways that documentation of heat response actions through Standard Operation Protocols (SOPs) can improve the consistency of heat response actions nationally.
• Minni Sastry and Benjamin Hickman of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) emphasized the need to link heat planning with our understanding of the changing climate and local cooling needs. These experts also discussed specific solutions: cool roofs are simple, low-cost passive cooling solutions that can reduce strain on the country’s electricity grid, and community cooling centers located in hotspot areas identified through local heat vulnerability assessments can deliver much needed relief to outdoor workers and other vulnerable populations.

Moving the National Heat Preparedness Agenda Forward

Following up from this workshop, next month NDMA will host its annual heat preparedness workshop to seek further inputs from heat-prone respective states on a larger Heatwave Preparedness and Mitigation agenda. This week’s workshop facilitated the exchange of knowledge and experiences among participants and provided a platform and momentum for the formation of a technical advisory group to continue discussions on policy frameworks and guidelines for a national heat mitigation agenda. Because extreme heat risks are expected to intensify in India in the years to come, cities across the country must take steps to shore up and strengthen their actions on the ground to keep residents safe.