India Is Using AI and Satellites to Map Urban Heat Vulnerability Down to the Building Level

The national government also doesn’t recognize heat waves as “notified” disasters, meaning they can’t trigger financial assistance under the country’s disaster-management legislation.

As a result, whatever measures are taken tend to be short term and reactive. Temporary measures like school closures ordered by the education department or oral rehydration solution stockpiling orders by health departments are being repeated each year. But these measures don’t do anything to build structural resilience for cities to adapt to worsening heat conditions.