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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.

The book “Road to Resilience” is a guide to increasing the resiience of the world's cities. The book is aimed at urban policy makers and planners and provides bottom-up resilience building options for augmenting urban services through conservation of local resources and waste recycling options. It provides solutions based on principles of conjunctive management of resources, demand focused end-use as well as subsidiary to increase autonomy at local scales.

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.

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.

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.

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.

The City Development Plan of Indore states that “increasing population pressure is resulting in deterioration of infrastructure facilities, loss of productive agricultural lands, green open spaces, loss of surface water bodies, depletion of groundwater aquifer zones, air pollution, water contamination, health hazards and many micro-climatic changes.” The main objective of this TARU Leading Edge project is “Ensuring availability of local water resources during emergencies.” This would be achieved by developing replicable model for peri-urban lake rejuvenation and conservation.

The City of Surat is one of the most prosperous (also known as Diamond City) city in India.Surat has been facing floods since formation of the city. Even after the building of the Ukai dam, the floods continued to damage the city. Due to rapid growth and expansion of the city, the flood damages are increasing especially since the last two decades, with the frequency of floods staying at least once in four years. In 2006 extreme floods (due to emergency release from Ukai dam) inundated 75% area of the city.

Integrated Disease Surveillance Project (IDSP) is a decentralized, state based surveillance program in the country. It is intended to detect early warning signals of impending outbreaks and help initiate an effective response in a timely manner. It is also expected to provide essential data to monitor progress of on-going disease control program and help allocate health resources more efficiently. The course of an epidemic is dependent on how early the outbreak is identified and how effectively specific control measures are applied.

Surat known as “Diamond city or Textile city”, located on river Tapi is India’s 12th and Gujarat’s 2nd most populous city with a population of 4.4 million. Surat lies in the flood plain area and there are a number of creeks in southern west part of city. Rapid industrialization with heavy migration from various parts of India and merger of villages due to extension of city limits results in to almost doubling of the population in a decade.

History repeated itself in the city of Chennai on November- December 2015, when the devastating flood claimed more than 470 lives and resulted in enormous economic loss. The city and its suburb recorded several days between November 2015 to December 2015 of torrential rainfall, which inundated coastal districts of Chennai, Kancheepuram and Tiruvallur, and affected more than 4 million people with economic damages costing around US$3 billion (The National 2015). Death of 18 patients in MIOT International Hospital was reported on December 5, 2015.

Key Messages: The urban population growth, inter-sectoral competition over water resources and climate change are expected roll out concurrently, amplifying water scarcity, energy and treatment costs and health issues in urban areas. Improving efficiency and reducing climate change related risks would be possible through integrated management of water, sewage, solid wastes and storm water management across household to city scales.

ACCCRN works at the nexus of climate change, vulnerable and poor communities, and urbanization. ACCCRN programme through its collective knowledge and evidence pooling had built an emerging practice area of urban climate change resilience (UCCR). This synthesis report considers the effort undertaken in India during the last ve years and also showcases the evidence from cities involved in developing the City Resilience Strategy and practical interventions adopted to create urban resilience. Synthesis Report on ACCCRN India is brought out in two volumes. Volume 1 contains five chapters.

The City Development Plan of Indore states that “increasing population pressure is resulting in deterioration of infrastructure facilities, loss of productive agricultural lands, green open spaces, loss of surface water bodies, depletion of groundwater aquifer zones, air pollution, water contamination, health hazards and many micro-climatic changes.” The main objective of this TARU Leading Edge project is “Ensuring availability of local water resources during emergencies.” This would be achieved by developing replicable model for peri-urban lake rejuvenation and conservation.

Background: Urban Health is a new arena in India as well as other developing nations on the other hand these countries are rapidly urbanizing. Climate Change is likely to pausing more serious challenges in urban area. There is an urgent need to research and document Urban Health and Climate Resilience challenges and solutions as well as to design appropriate need based trainings and network of the institutions to strengthen and spread the evidence based knowledge and skill.