Acclimatise

This paper describes the flood risks faced by Surat, one of India’s most successful and also most flood-prone cities. The city is located on the Tapi River and faces flood risks not only from heavy precipitation in and around the city but also from heavy precipitation upstream and from high tides downstream. Reducing the risks from upstream depends on better water management in a water catchment area and dam reservoir located far outside the city authority’s jurisdiction and in another state.

Cities are engines of economic growth. Rapid urbanisation has resulted in growing challenges to urban systems and their associated vulnerability. These challenges may possibly be exacerbated with events of extreme temperature, severe rainfall, intense cyclonic storms and extended droughts. Such climate variability and climate change may impact our natural resources, health, quality of life, and viable urban development.

This document is prepared with the aim of providing a framework for development of climate resilience strategy for the city of Indore. It has been developed based on interaction with city stakeholders, sector studies conducted to understand different dimensions of current situation, information from secondary literature, and through conduct of risk to resilience workshop. The City Resilience Strategy, is aimed at city managers and people at large. This document is based on the current situation and has a scope for updation to reflect emerging trends over time.

The Rockefeller Foundation's Asian Cities Climate Change Resilience Network initiative is a collective experiment with a range of activities that will together improve the ability of the cities to withstand, prepare for, and recover from the projectedimpacts of climate change. The interventions in the city of Indore and Surat include rasising awareness of climate variability and climate change risks, developing city specific vision strategies and scenarios for informed decision making, screening programmes and plans for urban environment, planning, development, transport, and much more.

Planning Heatwave Management in India. Led by Taru Leading Edge, Delhi, the process of mapping the pathway has been inclusive and participatory. The report draws on both, available best expertise as well as recent rapidly evolving experience and learning of managing heatwaves in Indian cities. Previous studies and work in urban areas across India suggests that there is no single institutional blueprint that is applicable everywhere which can be used to manage extreme heat. Strong local leadership invariably can make a significant difference.

Rapid urbanization and aspirational change is causing unplanned land use and land cover changes. Unplanned and unforeseen development are resulting in micro-climate changes which are evident in urban areas. The relative change (mostly increase) in urban temperature profile compared to its rural counterpart is termed as urban heat island effect (UHI). Such changes give rise to challenges associated with service deficiency, un-engineered built environment, public health, and other issues.

Indian cities have experienced unforeseen population growth over the last two decades and this trend is expected to continue over the next two decades. With increasing population, the housing stock will grow manifold and affordable housing will be the biggest challenge to meet. One of the greatest fallouts of rapid urbanization is seen in dilapidated and congested dwellings for the economically weaker segment of the urban population. Both private developers and government schemes which cater to this segment of housing need to ensure digni ed and comfortable living for the urban poor.

Surat is India’s 12th largest city with a population of 4.4 million (2011 Census). The city has been growing fast: it has almost doubled in size between 2001 and 2011. The high density, the lack of safe water supply and its location on a river side, combined with high temperatures and humidity, changing rainfall patterns, rapid urban growth and industrial development make Surat highly conducive to vector-borne and water-borne diseases.

A TARU Leading edge case study to promote cool roof and passive ventilation technologies in state and central government poor housing schemes through advocacy and support. The expansion of the cities resulting in increasing heat island effects as well as climate change has caused these extremes becoming common events every summer over last decade. While green housing is being promoted, Indian cities already have a significant proportion of houses built over last three decades or older, which have minimal provisions for passive space cooling.

Conjunctive Water Management (CWM) of local and distant sources is necessary to manage the ever growing crisis of urban water supplies. CWM emphasises understanding the demand and meeting it through a judicious mix of the local as well as distant sources based on quality, availability and cost. The CWM framework, prepared by TARU Leading Edge, further emphasizes demand focused end use of water (low quality water used for low end uses whereas high quality water for high end uses). The population of Indore is about 2.5 million.