Abstract
Extreme heat and heat waves have been established as disasters which can lead to a great loss of life. Several studies over the years, both within and outside of India, have shown how extreme heat events lead to an overall increase in mortality. However, the impact of extreme heat, similar to other disasters, depends upon the vulnerability of the population. This study aims to assess the extreme heat vulnerability of the population of four cities with different characteristics across India. This cross-sectional study included 500 households from each city across the urban localities (both slum and non-slum) of Ongole in Andhra Pradesh, Karimnagar in Telangana, Kolkata in West Bengal and Angul in Odisha. Twenty-one indicators were used to construct a household vulnerability index to understand the vulnerability of the cities. The results have shown that the majority of the households fell under moderate to high vulnerability level across all the cities. Angul and Kolkata were found to be more highly vulnerable as compared to Ongole and Karimnagar. Further analysis also revealed that household vulnerability is more significantly related to adaptive capacity than sensitivity and exposure. Heat Vulnerability Index can help in identifying the vulnerable population and scaling up adaptive practices.
Highlights
The results show that heat vulnerability index (HVI) is significantly correlated with a lack of adaptive capacity
Conceptualizing heat vulnerability as a function of exposure, sensitivity and adaptive capacity [28], the study computed the multidimensional HVI for each household to assess the magnitude of their vulnerability to extreme heat and heat waves
The developed HVI indicated that majority of the urban households in Indian cities have a high vulnerability to extreme heat
Summary
Extreme heat and heat waves are the most under-rated weather phenomena amongst all other extreme weather events (EWEs), i.e., floods, tropical cyclones, heavy rainfalls, cold waves, lightning and so on. This is perhaps the hazardous effects of extreme heat, especially at the onset, are significantly less apparent and discernible. Several studies indicated that the intensity, duration, and frequency of heat waves are likely to increase in a warming climate [1,3]. While extreme heat poses a significant risk to human health in general, threats to the vulnerable populations are worse in an urban setting due to the urban heat island (UHI)
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