Climate Change challenges for Deccan Region of Telangana

In a hot environment, the body relies mainly on two mechanisms for cooling off and maintaining a safe temperature: evaporation of sweat from the skin and increased skin blood flow. These processes can place strain on the heart and lungs. Excessive heat can result in a range of adverse health impacts, including heat cramps, heat edema (swelling), heat syncope (fainting), heat exhaustion, and life-threatening heat stroke. Risk Factors also increase heat vulnerability. The elderly are especially susceptible to heat-related illness. The body's ability to physically cope with heat is impaired by the aging process. Additionally, a number of chronic medical conditions can increase vulnerability to heat stress: obesity; vascular disease; multiple sclerosis; hyperthyroid; diabetes; heart, kidney, or breathing problems etc. Very young children are also especially susceptible during heat waves, as we have seen in the past days.

Geography can also increase a community's vulnerability to heat waves. In cities, buildings, pavement, and dark roofs tend to absorb more heat during the day and retain more heat during the night than does the surrounding countryside—referred to as the "urban heat island

effect"— which can compound the intensity of high temperatures for city dwellers.

In order to enable planners to deal with the complex circumstances, the Project has developed a software tool (based on public domain web-GIS) enabling us to analyse spatially and temporal explicit climate change impacts for different combinations of scenarios in an interactive manner. It is called the Climate Assessment Tool for Hyderabad (CATHY) With its help, climate variables which are relevant for the urban functioning of Hyderabad can be projected with a good deal of certainty. The study clearly shows that a global emission reduction is beneficial for Hyderabad and would reduce adaptation costs. Spatially explicit projections of climate change impacts are possible and must be considered in spatial planning. The results of this kind of assessment then need to be made available for the planning processes which encompass a wide variety of institutional actors namely, the administrative and planning authority of the metropolitan region, elected council of the corporations and municipalities in the region, other elected governance units, researchers, industries, NGOs and other associations in the civil society.

Spatially explicit projections of climate change impacts, such as heat wave impacts and high precipitations, are possible and can be considered in spatial planning so as to implement relevant recommendations.

What measures State govt needs to take

Hyderabad Metropolitan Development Authority (HMDA), Ministry for Municipal Administration and Urban Development (MoMAUD) and Government of Telangana State (GoTS)

• Include and consider the climate change predictions for Hyderabad in the Development Master Plan 2031 for the Hyderabad metropolitan region and their impacts on various functions of the city.

• Check the decisions of planning and development against their compatibility with future climate change scenarios.

• Avoid development in future flood-prone areas and/or creating adequate drainage infrastructure.

• Settlement planning must take into account the likely increase in heat waves by creating ventilation corridors and shading.

• Buildings should be prepared with insulation and passive cooling measures (How about constructing modern houses with old, ancient building architecture as in villages).

• Adapt informal settlements to the effects of climate change.

• Traffic planning has to consider increasing flood frequencies in presently unproblematic locations and should also rely on the spatially explicit CATHY results. Road and track planning has to be adapted respectively.

Imperatives for civil society

• Civil society has to engage actively in assessing and debating the development plans of Hyderabad against the backdrop of climate change.

• The capacities of Resident Welfare Associations and other NGO's need to be built so that they can tap the development of newly developed knowledge platform CATHY and also contribute to the enrichment of the tool by adding data on different socio-economic dimensions.

Literature used for the article

Mathias K.B. Luedecke, Martin Budde, Oles Kitt and Diana Reckien: Evaluating Climate Change Scenarios, from AOGCMs to Hyderabad. In: Hagedorn, Werthmann, Zikos and Chennamaneni: Emerging Megacities, 05/2009 Weblink:https://www.snapdeal.com/product/climate-change-scenarios-for-hyderabad/665084591136)

(This is the concluding part of the article; Writer is Telangana Legislative Assembly Member, Chairman, Indo-German Climate Change Project and Humboldt Expert in Agriculture, Environment and Cooperation)