Potential Effect of the Changing Urban Climate on Non-Communicable Diseases: A Case Study on Barasat City, India

Abstract

Rapid land use change in urban areas creates a unique climate, which risks the health of its inhabitants. The unique urban climate is attributable to a phenomenon recognized as the Urban Heat Island (UHI). Under such circumstances, the urban regions become hotter than their rural surroundings, creating an island of higher temperatures. Human exposure to excessively warm heat islands, particularly in humid climates like India, is becoming an increasingly serious public health issue. This paper briefly analyses the formation of surface urban heat islands (SUHI), identified by estimating the Land Surface Temperature (LST) and also its potential impacts on the occurrence of heat-related Non-Communicable Diseases (NCD) within a city. Barasat city of India has been chosen to demonstrate this work. LST has been estimated from the Landsat data using a remote sensing platform. It has been observed that the high LST in Barasat city perfectly followed an emitting shape in descending order from the city center to the suburban areas. A primary household survey was conducted in 2018 in the month of March-April, where 200 samples were collected. The information has been collected from the samples regarding their occupation, average hours of exposure to high heat zones, and the NCDs they have suffered from. It has been found that heat cramps, heat stress, heat strokes, and respiratory diseases are common for people exposed to the high heat zone. Although NCDs increase the socioeconomic burden in developing cities, NCD surveillance is limited in India. This study will assist in formulating a better urban neighborhood considering the city’s population exposed to UHI.