Case Study in Heat: Global Cities Address Climate-Health Threats With Early Warning Systems

Even with technological adaptations like air conditioning, extreme heat threatens human health today globally in both developed and developing nations. Climate change is fueling more frequent, more intense and longer-lasting heat waves, heightening the need to develop robust heat-health preparedness plans for growing global cities. In many locations including the US, a lack of centralized reporting on heat-related illness and death hampers efforts to fully assess its burden on public health.

With these goals in mind, and after a devastating 2010 heat wave, the Indian city of Ahmedabad, Gujarat began to explore options for developing and launching an extreme heat early warning system. The project team was comprised of collaborators from the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC), the Public Health Foundation of India (PHFI), the Indian Institute of Public Health (IIPH), and the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), along with several independent heat-health and climate change experts from the US and India.

Just two years after the project's 2011 kickoff workshop, a Heat Action Plan and heat wave early warning system was launched, in April 2013. The project in this growing city in western India has yielded insights into methods to integrate climatology, meteorological forecasting and public health system coordination to reduce urban heat vulnerability, especially for Ahmedabad's most vulnerable residents.

Neighborhood-scale risk communication and citywide outreach about the health risks of extreme heat in Ahmedabad can help enhance climate change preparedness, moving forward. Planning and preparedness efforts to address the effects of increasing heat, storms, and flooding in a changing climate can help improve public health.