The Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation has been scaling India’s first Heat Action Plan to help the city adapt to rising temperatures with measures such as the availability of drinking water, providing heat-resistant clothing to vulnerable populations, cool roofs that reflect sunlight and absorb less heat, and setting up heat stroke treatment centers.
Critical steps for scaling this have been public awareness and community outreach, inter-agency coordination to enable an early warning system, capacity building among healthcare professionals, and promoting adaptive measures to reduce heat exposure.
So what?
Several Indian states will experience ever-more deadly heatwaves in the future. Initiatives such as heat action plans and community outreach can act as crucial anticipatory steps for states to prioritize now to create resilience.
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