Part of Understanding the vulnerability of New Delhi to Heatwaves, this repository holds a collection of (experimental) Jupyter notebooks exploring data available through the Development Data Partnership.
Heatwaves could impact the progress made in at least 10 of the 17 SDGs making them a critical, global phenomenon that needs to be addressed collectively and with urgency. Unlike sudden-onset disasters, heatwaves do not come with the drama of flying roofs and flooded streets. On the contrary, they are silent killers that trigger cascading impacts on agriculture, food security, healthcare, education, employment, energy, water supply, urban resilience, and human development. In 2022 alone, extreme heat has been the leading cause of crop failures in India, hydropower shortages in China, and exacerbated flooding in Pakistan through accelerated melting of glaciers. However, even within the same country, these impacts are not felt by every person and every sector equally. To inform targeted policy interventions that alleviate the impact of extreme heat, it is important to assess the vulnerability of different sectors to extreme heat at a granular scale, using a standardized methodology.
Currently, there is no standardized methodology to define or assess the impacts from heatwaves. Each meteorological department uses their own dataset and definition to estimate heatwaves and often do not differentiate the definition of a heatwave between people and crops. Impact from natural disasters is often measured in terms of number of deaths, number of people impacted, and economic losses caused by it. Such a methodology cannot be applied to heatwaves because it is a slow-onset disaster and the impacts from it are not felt immediately after the event.
The team proposes the use of different definitions of heatwaves applicable to crops and people separately. These definitions will allow for the monitoring of impacts in different sectors differently. The impact can be measured across the sectors of health, electricity, water, agriculture, and the economy using a standard set of indicators (listed below).
One important impact of heatwaves is the triggering of cascading natural disasters – floods and droughts. To account for this, two indicators are identified. These two indicators allow for the spatial mapping of areas that are flood-prone and drought-prone due to heatwaves, thus making them more vulnerable.
The following indicators are proposed to assess the impact of heatwaves across sectors - The following indicators will be calculated at the granularity of the lowest administrative boundary data available, preferably a city. The impact will be measured between the years 2015 and 2022.
This work is licensed under the World Bank Master Community License Agreement.
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