Climate Change | How climate change affects cities

From ground zero: Human decisions worsened climate tragedy in Wayanad

Even as the challenge of rehabilitating the landslide-affected looms large, the disaster raises other issues. Once a dense forest, Wayanad now has tea and coffee plantations, tourist resorts, road projects through the mountain ranges, and mono-culture crops like rubber whose…

Dehradun model of development is unsustainable, ecologically hazardous

Once a quaint hill station nestled in the Himalayas, cradling many public institutions of learning and research, Dehradun has seen rapid growth…

India’s changing monsoon patterns demand shifting gears in preparedness

There is empirical evidence to show that changes in the monsoon or heavier rainfall is not merely our imagination. The tehsil-level study…

‘Maharashtra had 1,500 landslides in 2021, so 1,500 lessons but nothing learnt’

The Wayanad landslides bring back memories of last year’s landslide in Maharashtra’s Raigad district, on the Sahyadri range of the Western Ghats…

From monsoon magic to mayhem and what cities can do about it

There was a time when the monsoon brought a lot of joy and exhilaration in cities. The season was a part of…

Why India’s cities are not prepared for extreme heat and high rainfall

Searing heat scorched northern India, including Delhi, before rains hit hard. Flooding threw life out of gear in Pune, Bengaluru, Itanagar among…

Climate disasters are connected to the way our cities are planned

Cities have completely ignored their natural areas. If mapped and made available on a public database, people can be empowered with the…

Plastic chokes drains but bans are not enough

India’s ban on plastic in 2022 was to restrict the manufacture, distribution, stocking, sale and use of 19 single-use plastic items. An impractical approach and flawed implementation has resulted in hordes of plastic waste which chokes stormwater drains, washes up…

1.5 degrees Celsius lifestyles and the city

For cities, addressing the lifestyle choices of their inhabitants is not merely a luxury but an imperative. By framing 1.5C lifestyles in…

Urgent heat conversations and actions we need in India to cool down cities

As millions of Indians struggle through an relentlessly scorching summer with never-before high temperatures, Heat Action Plans have become critical to people’s…