Disaster proofing Indian smart cities

This publication is aimed at enabling smart city officials in the careful selection of digital technology in critical infrastructure. As part of the Smart City process Digital Information Technology (DIT) will be deployed widely across a number of towns, cities and states that are located across the many climatic and geological zones of India. Within cities a key function of DIT will be to ensure ‘life-line’ functions such as emergency health services, disaster response units continue to function uninterrupted and effectively.

Under conditions such as floods, cyclones and extreme heat - DIT itself needs to be robust in order to perform its designed critical function. While the key components of DIT (such as the electronics) are designed for operating in a wide range of weather conditions, the individual components as well the ‘systems’ are still vulnerable to impacts from weather extremes. This climate performance of systems and components is not always clear to cities and town when they procure DIT.

Such risks to DIT over the full life-cycle need to be planned for its context and mainstreamed within the policy, procurement, design and operations thereby sustaining the confidence of institutions, citizens, investors and manufacturers. Many smart cities that are looking to attract investors and investment will want to ensure that critical and emergency services can withstand climate extremes and any disruption to society and economy is minimised.