By Dhurjati Mukherjee
As per latest reports all 50 of the world’s hottest cities are in India as a brutal heatwave tightened its grip, pushing temperatures well above 40 degrees Celsius, sometimes even before noon. What makes the heat unbearable is the ‘real feel’ temperature which is 10 degrees higher. The external conditions are being driven by persistent dry north-westerly winds, clear skies and few pre-monsoon reliefs, across large parts of Gangetic plains.
The burden of this heatwave is obviously highest in densely populated low-income neighbourhoods with poor ventilation, limited tree cover and inadequate access to cooling mechanisms. While cities are the hotbeds of pollution and heat due to increasing activity and business, rural India faces an equally severe challenge. Prolonged direct exposure to heat for those working in the fields and doing outdoor work, which is quite common in villages, affects poor people quite gravely.
Unlike urban populations, the rural populace remains exposed to high temperatures for most part of the day. Managing heat stress in the country needs spatial planning backed by geospatial technologies that can identify and quantify local heat sources across both urban and rural regions. While in metros and big cities, urban forestry is the need of the hour, unfortunately, the congestion has been increasing at a very fast pace. Similarly in rural areas, more tree shades are necessary. Hospitals in several states reported rising cases of dehydration, heat exhaustion and sunstroke, especially among outdoor workers and the elderly.
Experts rightly believe that India urgently needs a dedicated research programme on heat risk, supported by stronger space-borne and ground observations, including smart sensor networks and continuous monitoring of air and wet bulb temperatures. Restoring nature, reducing use of chemical fertilisers and preventing land degradation may have some environmental impact in rural areas while in big cities, it is necessary to control vehicular pollution and ensure more open spaces are made available in congested areas.
There is an urgent need to take preventive action for unless this is done, heat waves cannot be controlled in the coming years. This is all the more necessary as the poor are likely to be affected severely as well as those from the lower echelons of society who are engaged in outdoor work.
A recent study in Nature Communications aptly pointed out that cities, specially poorer and hotter ones, can and should do more to increase tree cover. But due to limitations in availability of water, land and proper species, combined with worsening climate change, at most they could reduce urban heating by 15 to 20 per cent.
While decongesting cities may not be a possible alternative, what is happening is that there is expansion of these places to accommodate the huge population inflow. As a result, the bigger cities in the country are becoming more polluted and dirtier. India may have taken the term ‘dirty rich’ literally as our cities’ growth remains tied to polluting fossil fuel use and consequent pollution. However, China and several other nations have pulled ahead on cleaner urbanisation, according to a study in Nature Cities.
Against the backdrop of the problems of increasing heat due to climate change, it has been found that under a high-end emissions scenario could lead to a 16.9 per cent loss in GDP by 2070 across Asia and the Pacific region with India projected to suffer a 24.7 per cent GDP loss, according to a report titled ‘Asia-Pacific Climate Report’. Rising sea levels and decreasing labour productivity would drive the most significant losses with lower income and fragile economies being hit the hardest. If the climate crisis continued to accelerate, up to 200 million people in the region could be at risk from coastal inundation and trillions of dollars’ worth of coastal assets could face annual damage by 2070.
Keeping in view the need for an all-round strategy to counter heat, several factors need to be considered which includes controlling emissions – both vehicular and industrial — and ensuring a clean and congenial atmosphere, specially for children and the elderly. As pointed out by several experts, more open space must be created which can be done by dismantling unauthorised settlements and roadside shops and relocating these people to some other place and keeping the city pollution-free. It goes without saying that more trees need to be planted in residential colonies to keep the place cool.