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).

The study argues that comprehensive risk assessments at the localised level are the need of the hour and should be undertaken for all districts in India. This study looks at the combined risk of hydro-met disasters and their compounded impacts. As per our analysis, the Indian subcontinent has witnessed more than 478 extreme events since 1970 and an acceleration in their frequency after 2005.