Liveability in Cities: Experts Focused on Cooling Action

By Bijay Mishra
Bhubaneswar, January 24, 2023

Rapid and unplanned urbanization of cities with heat wave , while greatly impacted the urban population , experts, environmentalists & researchers stressed upon heat action plans. 

Cities including Angul , Talcher , Bhubaneswar , Jharsuguda, Kendujhar , Sundargarh etc of Odisha are witnessing rising episodes of heat waves in the recent few years. These heat waves are becoming more intense in urban areas due to concretization, diminishing green space and water bodies, poor site layouts and unguided design of the buildings and increasing private motorized mobility among other factors.

Heat wave is the biggest killer in Asia out of all hazards that affected public health in 2010-2020 according the sixth assessment report of the International Panel for Climate Change.  Furthermore, India recorded 280 heat wave days across 16 states in the summer of 2022 according to an analysis by Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) .
 
In a conference at Bhubaneswar on Tuesday, organised by CSE & Piloo Mody College of Architecture (PMCA),participants discussed on the issue of rising heat waves and strategies needed to combat it through better urban planning and designing.
 
“Lack of climate-responsive planning and design has caused our cities to spiral into public health concerns and poor liveability with compromised thermal comfort and deteriorating air quality.” –  told Rajneesh Sareen, Programme Director,CSE .  “Several experts, including  Prof. Dharitri Das, Dr. Kajri Mishra, Dr. Sudha Panda, Dr Jayant Routray, Mr. Rahu Das, Prof. Raj Kunwar Nayak & Sanghamitra Rath etc participated in the conference and shared their knowledge and experience to develop a strategy combine these parameters into a strategy and draw a roadmap for its implementation.
 
Two CSE publications titled ‘Mass Housing and Liveability: Mapping of the Ground Reality’ and ‘How Accessible are Low-income Settlements?’ were released by the experts.