Preparing India for extreme climate events mapping hotspots and response mechanisms

The study is the first-of-its-kind district-level profiling of India’s extreme climate events such as cyclones, floods, and drought. It uses spatial and temporal modelling to develop the district-level assessment discussing the complexities and non-linear trends and patterns. Besides the frequency of climate catastrophes, it examines the pattern of associated events and how the impacts have compounded. Further, it analyses the shift in trend in climate events across sub-regions within the country. The study uses a pentad decadal analysis to develop an extreme climate events catalogue for a historical time scale of 50 years (1970-2019). Key Findings include:
More than 75 per cent of Indian districts, which are home to over 638 million people, are extreme climate event hotspots.
Between 1970 and 2005, there were 250 extreme events. The period after 2005 recorded 310 extreme events and associated events, including slow onset events like heat waves and cold waves. Post-2005, at least 55 or more districts witnessed extreme flood events year-on-year, exposing 97.51 million people annually. The year 2005 recorded the highest flood frequency, with 140 floods affecting 69 districts. The number of affected districts increased to 151 in 2019.
The frequency of associated flood events such as landslides, heavy rainfall, hailstorms, thunderstorms, and cloudbursts surged by over 20 times between 1970 and 2019.