Tackle heatwaves with short and long term measures

Context

• On March 15, some States and cities in India experienced the first of severe heatwaves for the year 2025.

• This was 20 days earlier than the first severe heatwave in 2024. In the last decade, the number of severe heat days and the severity/intensity of heatwaves have been rising.

• The year 2024 was the warmest year on record at about 1.55°C above pre-industrial level, according to the World Meteorological Organization.

• In India, December 2022 was the hottest December since temperature monitoring in the country started in 1901.

• The frequency of heatwaves in India has increased in the last two decades, in comparison to the previous two decades

Heatstress

• The impact of rising external temperature along with humidity and wind speed, is reflected in the form of heat stress.

• When the outside temperature reaches close to our body temperature of 37° Celsius, the body fails to release the internal heat which is generated as a part of the basal metabolic rate.

• Thus, one starts to feel heat-stressed. Heat stress can affect multiple organs including the kidneys, the liver and the brain, and may cause sickness and even death.

• However, heatwaves have many non-health and socio-economic impacts. Climate change, specifically rising temperature, is one of the causes of farming sector stress in India.

• Livestock can die, further impacting the poor and farmers. Heat stress can reduce livestock production, food production, farm productivity and the ability of outdoor workers/ workforce productivity.

• As India is a labour-intensive country, especially in the agriculture and construction sector, heatwaves result in an individual’s reduced working ability.

• Thus, loss of work hours and loss of job reduce personal and family income.

• In India, up to 75% of the workforce, or 380 million people are dependent on heat exposed labour.

• There are estimates that heat stress results in an economic loss of 3% to 5% of GDP in many countries including India.

Initiatives to tackle heatstress

• In 2013, Ahmedabad, Gujarat, became the first municipal corporation in Asia to develop a heat action plan (HAP).

• Since then, and in the last decade, more than 23 Indian States and around 140 cities across India have State- and city-level HAPs.

• India’s National Programme on Climate Change and Human Health (NPCCHH) also provides heat advisories and other health-related information through the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA).

• Most HAPs have four to five components, i.e., early prediction of heatwaves to raise alerts; increasing awareness among the communities/people on actions to be taken; and preparing and getting the health system ready to manage health conditions. The fourth component of such plans focuses on ensuring long-term measures to reduce heat, government initiatives to increase the number of trees and parks and keeping gardens open for public use