Climate change is reshaping the contours of urban life, leaving megacities increasingly vulnerable to extreme weather, especially untimely rainfall and rising sea levels. These evolving risks disproportionately affect low-income and marginalized populations, leading to inequalities and underscoring the urgent need for deeper research and more responsive urban planning.
The latest edition of the EPIC India Dialogue took on this pressing issue by examining how climate-induced flooding impacts human health outcomes. In focus were the insights of Ashwin Rode, Director for Scientific Research at EPIC, and Dr. Debolina Kundu, Director at the National Institute of Urban Affairs (NIUA), as they explored the challenges faced by urban systems grappling with climate shocks.
Ashwin Rode opened the session with a presentation of findings from his research on the interplay of rainfall, sea-level rise, and mortality in Mumbai. While large-scale disasters often grab headlines, it is the frequent, localized urban floods, especially across the Global South, that quietly erode public health, often going unrecorded and unaddressed.
While addressing a group of more than 20 researchers, practitioners, and urban planners, Ashwin shared the experience of adopting a data-rich, ground-level approach in Mumbai to understand the impact of rising seas and erratic rainfall on mortality. His team combined daily, person-level mortality records from 2006 to 2015—mapped to residential addresses—with sub-daily, hyperlocal rainfall data and tide height measurements to capture the compounding effects of floods. Mumbai’s low-lying coastal geography and increasingly unpredictable monsoon patterns provided a natural experiment. What emerged was a clear link: when heavy rainfall coincided with high tides, a phenomenon known as tidal jacking, flooding worsened dramatically, and mortality rates rose.
“Our study highlights how tidal jacking and flooding pose serious risks to lives in coastal and riverine cities,” noted Rode. “By leveraging real-time data from Integrated Command and Control Centres (ICCCs) under the Smart Cities Mission, we can better anticipate these hazards and build adaptive responses. What we learn from the past must guide our future, especially as rising sea levels threaten our most vulnerable populations.”
The discussion between Rode and Dr. Kundu highlighted how a mix of oral histories, rainfall patterns, tidal data, and mobility insights reveal the true scale and complexity of flood risks. In Mumbai, where informal settlements, reclaimed land, and compromised natural drainage systems like mangroves converge, hyperlocal data becomes vital for understanding the unseen health burdens of flooding.
Rode explained how even if the study focused on Mumbai, the methodology offered relevance across coastal and inland cities. Cities like Chennai and Kolkata, with their own unique drainage and rainfall patterns, can adapt this approach. For non-coastal cities, it can be modified to incorporate upstream rainfall, riverine overflow, or glacial melt impacts, broadening its application across diverse geographies.
The Dialogue also stressed the need for future research to move beyond all-cause mortality and toward understanding specific health outcomes and causes of death. Integrating advancements in climate modelling, especially for temperature extremes, into health impact assessments is a promising step, though rainfall modelling remains more complex.
The session drew participation from more than 25 representatives, including members from the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE), National Institution for Transforming India (NITI Aayog), Indian Institute of Technology Delhi (IIT Delhi), Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC), Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India (ASSOCHAM), Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab South Asia (J-PAL SA), and Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU)—reflecting a growing consensus that tackling climate vulnerability requires data-driven, interdisciplinary, and equitable approaches..
This was the fourth edition of the EPIC India Dialogue, a flagship series that brings together a curated group of experts to debate and discuss India’s energy and environmental issues. The previous editions of the Dialogue were on Leveraging Emissions Trading in Asia-Pacific, Development-led Energy Transition Pathways to India’s Net Zero Goals and A Conversation on Jargon to Journey– Climate Communication That Connects.
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