Call for proposal in Urban Climate Research and Extreme Events

Last date for submission online proposals is 19^th September, 2024.

The Climate Change Programme under the Department of Science & Technology (DST) is dedicated to tackling the complex issues posed by climate change through a variety of initiatives. These initiatives include Climate Change Science and Adaptation, Climate Modeling, Coastal Vulnerabilities, Himalayan Ecosystem, Glaciology, Human Capacity Building, Institutional Capacity Building, Vulnerabilities and Risks Assessment, Research & Development in thematic areas of Climate Change, Innovation and Technique Development, Sector-Specific Adaptation like Water, Agriculture, Health, Biodiversity and Ecosystems etc. As part of these efforts, DST is seeking proposals focused on Urban Climate Research and Extreme Events, acknowledging the specific and urgent climate challenges faced by India’s urban areas.

With India’s rapid urbanization, cities are increasingly susceptible to climate impacts such as extreme heat, urban heat islands, flooding, infrastructure damage, air pollution, public health threats, biodiversity loss etc. Addressing these issues is crucial for ensuring the health, safety, and economic stability of millions of urban residents. This call for proposals is a key component of DST’s broader Climate Change Programme (CCP), under the Climate, Energy and Sustainable Technology (CEST) Division and one of the deliverables of the National Mission on Strategic Knowledge (NMSKCC). The Urban Climate Research and Extreme Event Call aims to promote research, innovation, and strategic knowledge development, for building strong human and institutional capacities to enable Indian cities to enhance their resilience, ensure sustainable development and improve the quality of life.

More details about the call (Call document and format etc.) can be found on https://onlinedst.gov.in/. Last date for submission online proposals is 19^th September, 2024.

Application format is at Annexure-I

Introduction:

The Climate Change Programme under the Department of Science & Technology (DST) is dedicated to tackling the complex issues posed by climate change through a variety of initiatives. These initiatives include Research & Development, Human & Institutional Capacity Building and Awareness Programmes. As part of these efforts, DST is seeking proposals focused on Urban Climate and Extreme Event acknowledging the specific and urgent climate challenges faced by India’s urban areas.

Call Description:

Urban climates are distinguished from those of less built-up areas by differences of air temperature, humidity, wind speed & direction and amount of precipitation. These differences are attributable in large part to the altering of the natural terrain through the construction of artificial structures and surfaces. Urbanization and the growth of developing cities are key drivers of economic progress. The 2018 IPCC Special Report on the impacts of global warming of 1.5 °C degrees warned that future warming and urban expansion could exacerbate extreme heat stress in megacities worldwide.

With nearly half of the global population currently residing in cities, this proportion is projected to rise to about 72% by 2050 (United Nations, 2012). India has the second-largest urban system in the world, with 50 urban agglomerations housing a million people each and 400 million urban residents, a number expected to double by 2050. By 2025, 70 Indian cities are anticipated to have more than 1 million inhabitants. Such rapid urban growth will shape consumption and production practices and increase exposure to climate risks for decades to come.

The International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Assessment Report 6 (AR) Working Group I (WG), reported increased frequency of precipitation extremes in urban regions with medium confidence and highlighted the risk of heightened temperature due to the urban heat island effect. Additionally, WGII assessed significant impacts on health, infrastructure, and livelihood.

Urban areas are seats of socioeconomic activities. How climate change will affect cities is currently poorly understood – but is of enormous economic and societal relevance because of the many infrastructural investments and population in the region. Cities, additionally, create their own microclimate due to urban heat islands, and modifying regional hydrology (through rainfall changes), and air quality (urban aerosols). Thus, the future climate change over cities is a combination of both the future global warming and local urban warming – and can likely even make cities 6 to 10°C warmer than they are today.

Future Scope for undertaking Research on Climate Change Impact in Urban Areas

1. Urban Heat Island (UHI) Effect

An urban heat island (UHI) is an urban area or metropolitan those are warmer than surrounding suburban and rural areas due to the absorption of heat by concrete and other building materials and the removal of vegetation and loss of permeable surfaces, both of which provide evaporative cooling area. The presence of UHI is due to urban densification, reduction in vegetation cover, and increase in anthropogenic heat. The temperature difference is usually larger at night than during the day, and is most apparent when winds are weak. The gap between the daytime maximum temperature and the night time maximum temperature in major cities has been declining over the year which has led to hot cities getting hotter while retaining more heat after dark. This difference in temperature can be as high as 1 to 3°C for a city with about 1 million people; while on a clear calm night, the difference can be as much as 12°C. For example, in Bangalore the dense urban pockets were found to be about 2°C warmer than nearby rural area whereas the summer time temperature of Delhi has been recorded to be 7-10°C higher than the temperature of surrounding rural areas. While significant work has been performed on measuring and estimating UHI, a long-term plan would involve understanding UHI pockets with relative role of urban morphology, adaptive urban planning, aerosol and estimation of adaptation gap.

2.Urban Flooding

Urban Flooding refers to the submergence of usually dry area by a large amount of water that comes from sudden excessive rainfall, an overflowing river or lake, melting snow or an exceptionally high tide’ (MoUD, 2017). Over the past several years, this problem has manifested in Hyderabad in 2000, Ahmedabad in 2001, Delhi in 2002 and 2003, Chennai in 2004, Mumbai in 2005, Surat in 2006, Kolkata in 2007, Jamshedpur in 2008, Delhi in 2009 and Guwahati and Delhi in 2010. The most recent devastating ones were Srinagar in 2014, Chennai in 2015, and Mumbai in 2017. The major cities that were recently flooded have witnessed reckless urbanization, destroying precious wetlands, forest and agricultural lands. Land use/land cover (LULC) changes indicate significant increase in built up lands, with the conversion of natural flood sinks into encroachments and dumping sites. The consequences of urban flooding are quite challenging and further aggravate with climate change, with effects on variation in rainfall and variability in the distribution of rainfall hence, it is necessary to study the rainfall patterns and effects of climate change on the urban flood scenario in a typical city and to come up with rainfall intensity actuated flood warning system. The research should not be limited to routine analysis of climate change impacts on urban rainfall in general, but to understand the microclimate characteristics with high resolution simulations, estimating adaptation gap and adaptation design, and design and implementation of early warnings at city level co-developed with municipal corporations.

3. Social Vulnerabilities to Extremes

Socio-economic factors affect the preparation, adaptation, vulnerability and resilience of different urban communities to the floods. Effective flood resilience and adaptation strategies could be devised in urban areas by gathering information on household-level social and economic attributes, assess the socio-economic vulnerability, mapping vulnerable areas, flood preparation measures, integration of climate change projection, Understand the long-term adaptation and recovery processes of communities.

4.Urban Health Problems/Diseases

Climate change significantly impacts environment-related diseases by altering ecosystems and exacerbating conditions that promote disease transmission. Warmer temperatures and changing precipitation patterns create ideal breeding grounds for vectors like mosquitoes, leading to the spread of diseases such as malaria and dengue. Increased rainfall and flooding contaminate water supplies, raising the risk of waterborne diseases like cholera, typhoid diarrhea, hepatitis, and gastroenteritis. Additionally, higher temperatures and urban heat islands exacerbate air pollution, which in turn heightens the incidence of respiratory diseases. Key research areas include Impact of Climate Change on Vector-Borne Diseases, Climate-Induced Changes in Waterborne Diseases, vulnerability of different populations to climate-induced health risk and link between urban heat islands, air pollution, and the rise in respiratory diseases.

Objectives and Expected Deliverables:

The present call for proposal does not aim to fund conventional, routine and regular proposal on Urban Climate Research and Extreme Event, but will focus on any one of the following objectives through interdisciplinary multi-institutional efforts involving stakeholders on

Advanced Simulations and Understanding of Urban Microclimate in a Changing Environment:

Observational network within a city and development of strategies for designing such network considering meteorological variability within the city.
Urban microclimate simulations at hyperlocal scale or advanced machine learning approaches with an objective to capture extremes and their spatial variability within city.
Role of urban morphology on urban climate through high resolution model based urban experiments and providing design guidelines for urban expansions
Role of urban air pollution on urban micro-climate through high resolution model based urban experiments and providing mitigation measures for sustainable urban growth

Urban Early Warning

1. Hyperlocal urban early warning system for air pollution, temperature extremes, rainfall extremes, fog and flooding.
2. Designing and co-developing sector specific decision tools based on early warning.
3. Experimental web portal and app for disseminating early warning to the citizen in consultation with municipal corporations, city bodies

Adaptation Gap and Design

Hyperlocal vulnerability map for the city/ urban region.
Observational network within a city and development of strategies for designing such network considering meteorological variability within the city.
Urban microclimate simulations at hyperlocal scale involving Large Eddy Simulation (LES) or Direct Numerical Simulation (DNS) approaches or advanced machine learning approaches with an objective to capture extremes and their spatial variability within city.
Role of urban morphology on urban climate through high resolution model based urban experiments and providing design guidelines for urban expansions

How to submit the proposal?

Proposals must be submitted as a single PDF document via https://onlinedst.gov.in/, following the prescribed format available on the same site, and must be duly forwarded by the Head of the Institution or University. Non-governmental organizations, including deemed and private universities, as well as research and development organizations, must register on the Government of India’s NGO DARPAN portal (https://ngodarpan.gov.in) prior to proposal submission. Private institutions submitting proposals under this call are required to contribute 25% of the capital grant.

Last date for submission online proposals is 19^th September, 2024.

Call Open Date: 20.08.2024 End Date: 19.09.2024

Scheme: Research & Development-Climate Change Programme-3237

Major Research & Development Programme(MRDP) on Urban Climate Research & Extreme Event

Budget Ceiling: Rs. 3 Crore

Duration: 3 Year

Project Investigator (PI) Criteria for MRDP on Urban Climate Research & Extreme Event Proposals

Educational Background: The PI should hold a Ph.D. or equivalent degree in a relevant field such as Climate Science, Urban Planning, Environmental Science, Earth Science, Atmospheric Science, Meteorology or a related discipline.
Experience: A minimum of 5 years of relevant post-doctoral experience in research, teaching, or professional practice related to urban climate, climate change adaptation, or urban sustainability and atmospheric science.
Collaboration with Government Ministries: The Principal Investigator (PI) must possess a minimum of three years of experience in projects that involve collaboration with the Department of Science & Technology/ Ministry of Earth Sciences/ Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC) or any Government Department. This experience should demonstrate leadership or significant contributions to projects that align with the thematic area of Urban Climate Research and Extreme Events.

R&D Programme on Urban Climate Research & Extreme Event

Budget Ceiling: Rs. 1 Crore

Duration: 3 Year

Project Investigator (PI) Criteria for R&D Programme on Urban Climate Research & Extreme Event Proposals

Educational Background: The PI should hold a Ph.D. or equivalent degree in a relevant field such as Climate Science, Urban Planning, Environmental Science, Meteorology or a related discipline.
Experience: A minimum of 5 years of relevant post-doctoral experience in research, teaching, or professional practice related to urban climate, climate change adaptation, or urban sustainability and atmospheric science.

For any other query and submission of a proposal please contact:

Dr. Susheela D Negi
Scientist-F, Climate, Energy and Sustainable Technology Division
Department of Science and Technology
Technology Bhawan, Ministry of Science and Technology, Govt. of India,
New Mehraulli Road, New Delhi- 110016
New Delhi-110016
Phone: 011-26590551, Email: susheela.n@nic.in

Dr. Anita Gupta

Head, Climate, Energy and Sustainable Technology Division
Department of Science and Technology
Technology Bhawan, Ministry of Science and Technology, Govt. of India,
New Mehraulli Road, New Delhi-110016
Phone: 011-26590213
Email: anigupta@nic.in

NOTE: The e-version of the proposal duly endorsed from Head of the organisation should

Be submitted as a single pdf document at https://onlinedst.gov.in/

Annexure-I

Call of proposal on MRDP & R&D Programme on Urban Climate Research & Extreme Event

The Project Proposal could be submitted in the enclosed format through ONLINE MODE ONLY (https://onlinedst.gov.in/Login.aspx) NO HARDCOPY of the project proposal should be submitted.

Date:

Place:

In regard to the research proposals emanating from scientific institutions/laboratories under various scientific departments the Head of the institution is required to provide a justification indicating clearly whether the research proposal falls in line with the normal research activities of the institution or not.

CLICK HERE TO KNOW MORE AND APPLY