Heat Waves - Question of Cities

Night heat: The silent crisis of summer for the marginalised

Rising night temperatures are playing havoc with people’s lives in cities. In Delhi’s Seemapuri, a colony of waste pickers, unusually warm nights compound the day’s heat stress. Mumbai and Chennai have unusually warm nights too. The burden of rising night…

Built form worsens unbearable heat in Mumbai’s SRA buildings

Slum Rehabilitation Authority (SRA) buildings in Mumbai’s Goregaon East record higher temperature than surrounding areas because of the built form – tiny…

Mapping heat stress shows Delhi street vendors’ precarity

Street vendors, indispensable to cities but structurally excluded from urban planning, infrastructure and legal protections, are forced to deal with continuous, unavoidable…

Rising heat makes cool
Kashmir history

As Srinagar and other parts of Kashmir turn hotter than ever in summer and winters become warm, discussions revolve around declaring heat…

Shade as infrastructure for Hyderabad’s vendors in scorching sun

The city’s tree cover has shrunk, taking away the natural shade that would have provided some respite for thousands of vendors forced…

‘Move from crisis-oriented approach during heat waves to making cities heat-resilient’

Every year, discussions in the public and private domains on heat start around March-April and peak in May-June. These usually focus on…

Trees: Nature’s canopies against scorched cities and heat waves

It’s known that trees are natural coolers amidst the concrete in our cities. This becomes critical when cities reel under heat waves…

Informal workers brave cruel heat for a few rupees a day

Outdoor and informal workers such as construction labourers, delivery drivers, hawkers and vendors are forced to brave the punishing heat to earn a few rupees a day. Their working conditions are deplorable, living conditions no better. As they bear the…

Heat-proofing cities: Green solutions that helped to cool them

As cities around the world warm up faster and heat waves become more frequent and intense, cities have gone beyond red heat…