Climate Resilient Smart Cities: Opportunities for Innovative Solutions in India

Rajasekar, Umamaheshwaran; Chakraborty, Soumita; Bhat, G. K.

doi:10.1007/978-3-319-65003-6_11

Cited by 11 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 3 publications

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“…Additionally, the inadequate organizational capacity in urban local governments remains a major constraint in implementing projects. A lack of time, human resources, and interdisciplinary knowledge and thinking are some of the challenges that still exist, despite the fact that various capacity-building programs and workshops have been organized by the government and international agencies [45,61]. Moreover, a lack of continuous engagement with citizens at various stages of planning has proved to be an impeding factor in the implementation of city projects [45,48].…”

Section: Institutional Challengesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Message Sent, Now What? A Critical Analysis of the Heat Action Plan in Ahmedabad, India

Nastar

2020

Urban Science

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To protect public health, heat-related policies are increasingly being adopted by city authorities to address the unequal impact of heatwaves. Ahmedabad’s Heat Action Plan (HAP) is an acclaimed and successful policy response in India and beyond. While the pilot evaluation of the initiative suggests that almost a thousand deaths were avoided annually after its implementation, it is not yet clear whose lives were saved, and to what extent this statistic was due to the HAP, rather than other factors. By reviewing the published and grey literature centering on the HAP target groups, outreach strategies, and impacts on urban services, this paper points out major knowledge gaps concerning the potentials and impacts of the HAP, which may lead to the systematical exclusion of vulnerable and disadvantaged groups from the intended benefits. In this paper, it is argued that the effectiveness and inclusiveness of the HAP predominantly depend on its integration into urban development projects, which is a challenging task given the existing horizontal and vertical fragmentation in the planning of city projects. Moreover, urban plans and policies, including the HAP, are shown to be overly focused on technology, and as a consequence, they do not realize their limited scope in addressing the associated issues, which are fundamentally social, deep, and structural, such as spatial inequality in Indian cities.

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Section: Institutional Challengesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Message Sent, Now What? A Critical Analysis of the Heat Action Plan in Ahmedabad, India

Nastar

2020

Urban Science

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“…Of 59 city plans, an analysis found that only 10 per cent have climate-relevant strategies and 30 per cent exhibit awareness (Kumar and Geneletti 2015: 215). The focus, instead, has been on addressing more immediate and pressing developmental needs, which city governments have institutional and electoral incentives to meet (Bahadur and Tanner 2014b;Rajasekar, Chakraborty, and Bhat 2018).…”

Section: Characteristics Of Urban India's Climate Responsesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Urban India and Climate Change

Khosla¹,

Bhardwaj²

2019

India in a Warming World

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India will undergo immense urbanization in the coming decades, doubling its urban population by 2050. This transformation is unique as it will come at the time when the impacts of, as well as the global momentum to respond to, climate change heighten. India’s urban transformation will, therefore, have deep implications for not only local welfare and environmental conditions but also for climate mitigation and climate adaptation. As most of urban India is yet to be built, India has a unique opportunity to lock-in low-carbon, resilient, and equitable urban forms for the long term. This chapter discusses the evolution of India’s urban climate actions, from addressing climate risks to, more recently, mitigation, while also exploring the governance characteristics of these actions. These actions, while nascent, provide an indication that the future trajectory of urban responses to climate change will be shaped by how local development and climate goals will be linked and prioritized.

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“…National‐level policies and schemes, informed by the growing studies on urban climate change, are also promoting cities to adopt climate friendly features. For instance, the National Mission on Sustainable Habitat, Smart Cities Mission, Solar City Program and Green Urban Transport Mission collectively enable rooftop solar, energy efficiency, public transport, pavements and bike lanes, and building energy codes (Hackenbroch & Woiwode, ; Rajasekar et al, ; Taraporevala, ). Simultaneously, the development of water and storm drain infrastructure, via the Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation, is being justified in terms of urban climate resilience (Government of India, ).…”

Section: Evolution Of India's Urban Climate Responsesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Actions pursued for adaptation and resilience differed geographically, depending on local vulnerabilities and risks, and related infrastructure deficits (Dhyani, Lahoti, Khare, Pujari, & Verma, 2018;International Council of Local Environmental Initiatives-South Asia, 2013;Joerin, Shaw, Takeuchi, & Krishnamurthy, 2014;Sharma, Singh, & Singh, 2014;United Nations Development Program, 2014;Yenneti et al, 2016). In Gorakhpur, water logging was the rallying point, while in Indore it was water scarcity (Bahadur & Tanner, 2014a;Rajasekar, Chakraborty, & Bhat, 2018). In Ahmedabad, heat stress motivated the call for action (Knowlton et al, 2014).…”

Section: Evolution Of India's Urban Climate Responsesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Urbanization in the time of climate change: Examining the response of Indian cities

Khosla

Bhardwaj

2018

WIREs Climate Change

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India's urban transition is salient to the growing emphasis on city responses to climate change. While projected to experience the largest global urban transition with significant infrastructure investment in the next few decades, the welfare of Indian cities remains poor, which complicates the implications for climate change mitigation and adaptation. This paper traces, synthesizes and characterizes the emerging literature on Indian urban climate debates. It discusses the arc of urban climate efforts, from an initial emphasis on climate vulnerabilities and risks, broadening over time to include climate mitigation. The paper examines the governance forms and political motivations with which such actions are pursued in cities and finds three overarching characteristics: the use of local development priorities as an entry point to climate mitigation and adaptation; the role of nonstate actors in promoting climate-relevant outcomes; and the proclivity for discrete project-based activities. The paper suggests that while a range of Indian cities are beginning to consider climate concerns, a larger strategic understanding of the interaction between climate and development priorities, across policy and governance levels, is yet to be developed. The future trajectory of urban India's responses to climate change will be shaped by the institutional prioritising, linking and integrating of urgent local development and mitigation and adaptation goals.This article is categorized under:

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Climate Resilient Smart Cities: Opportunities for Innovative Solutions in India

Cited by 11 publications

References 3 publications

Message Sent, Now What? A Critical Analysis of the Heat Action Plan in Ahmedabad, India

Message Sent, Now What? A Critical Analysis of the Heat Action Plan in Ahmedabad, India

Urban India and Climate Change

Urbanization in the time of climate change: Examining the response of Indian cities

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