According to a recent study, the heat wave will take the maximum toll on urban cities of India in the 2020s, with five urban areas to be affected the most.
The five cities that will experience the maximum increase in heat-related deaths are Ahmedabad, Kolkata, Bengaluru, Delhi and Mumbai.
The collaborative study done by IIM Ahmedabad, IIT Gandhinagar and The Council on Energy, Environment and Water, an independent policy research organisation, says mapping mortality impacts of the projected climate in urban areas of developing countries will play a crucial role in instituting planned adaptation measures to protect public health.
The study provides a comprehensive assessment of mortality in 52 urban areas — where population is over one million — located in diverse climatic regions in India.
“Our findings underscore the need for policy makers to anticipate, plan and respond to climate change. We collected information on daily deaths, temperature, humidity and pollution to develop a statistical model that tells us how the risk of death (or mortality) varies with changes in temperature,” Dr Hem H Dholakia, a research associate at The Council on Energy, Environment and Water and the lead author of the study, said.
