Local Level Planning to Cope with Heat Waves in India

This issue of Southasiadisasters.net focuses on the theme of the 'Risk of Heat Waves and Climate Change in India'. This issue tries to highlight the phenomena of heat waves from the perspectives of various stakeholders ranging from the local authorities to the vulnerable communities such as street vendors, construction workers, children and the elderly. The Ahmedabad Heat Action Plan has been highlighted as a policy level intervention worth emulating in other Indian cities. Similarly, an anthropological perspective to heat wave planning is also posited. The eclectic perspectives on heat waves and climate change highlighted in this issue will help the readers understand the challenges India faces and the opportunities it can leverage to protect its citizens from heat waves and other adverse impacts of climate change. This issue's contents includes: (i) Need for National Strategy for Heat wave Preparedness; (ii) Heat Waves in India: Key Facts and Figures; (iii) Scaling up Heat Action Plans in India: The Ahmedabad Experience; (iv) Towards Climate Sensitive Disaster Management Plan in Gujarat; (v) Heat Waves and Disaster Management Plans in India; (vi) Why Every Authority should have a Heat Wave Preparedness Plan; (vii) Beating the Heat: Lessons from Ahmedabad's Heat Wave Action Plan; (viii) Ahmedabad's Heat Action Kids; (ix) Schools to Build Resilience against Heat Waves; (x) An Anthropological Approach to Understanding Heat Waves; (xi) Climate Change within Disaster Risk Reduction; and (xii) Documentation of Best Practice of the Community at Chaudangpathar Golaghat.