Heat Action Plans: what cities do, and how Ahmedabad's came first

A heat action plan is a city's or state's playbook for hot weather: who issues alerts, who opens cooling spaces, how hospitals get ready and how people are told what to do.

How it started. The National Institute of Disaster Management (NIDM) describes the 2010 Indian heat wave as a wake-up call. It says the first systematic attempt at heat-wave management planning in India was the Ahmedabad Heat Action Plan, launched in 2013 by the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation with domestic and international experts.

Ahmedabad's four strategies. Building public awareness through outreach in the local language; a response system to prevent heat deaths and illness at the onset of heat; an early warning system with inter-agency coordination to alert citizens to forecast extreme temperatures; and training city officials and health workers to recognise and respond to heat illness. The work also led to mapping high-risk areas and cooling spaces and coordinating water and electricity on extreme heat days. NIDM says the model was applied in Maharashtra and Odisha.

National guidelines. IMD notes that NDMA issued guidelines for preparing heat action plans in 2016. They cover early warnings, public awareness, inter-agency coordination, health-care training and reducing heat exposure for vulnerable people, with IMD providing forecasts and warnings.

Your city. Ask your municipal corporation or district office whether it has a heat action plan, and what it will do before summer 2027.

Join the El Niño help room on soshyal.com to ask questions and share what you see in your area.