13 April 2026; 13:00-14:00 GMT+1
Presenter: Rohit Magotra
Biography
Rohit is the Deputy Director and leads work on Climate Adaptation and Sustainable Urban Development work at Integrated Research and Action for Development (IRADe), which is a reputed think tank in South Asia. He has 23 years plus work experience working on research and action projects related to agriculture, climate adaptation, energy, disaster management and urban climate resilience.
He has been working on climate change adaptation research, policy and communications for the cities in South Asia. He has done pioneering research in the area of Climate change and Heat stress and its socio-economic impacts in South Asia and subsequently worked with stakeholders to develop climate adaptive and gender sensitive heat action plans
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Paper/article to be presented
Title: Improving the effectiveness of Early Warning Systems in India – Heat Index-based Early Warnings in India
India’s current Heat Early Warning Systems primarily rely on maximum temperature thresholds set by the India Meteorological Department (IMD), which often overlook the compounded effects of humidity for early warning. Developing local heat index-based thresholds—factoring in temperature and humidity shall provide a more accurate measure of feels-like heat stress. In 2025, we undertook field surveys in two districts of India, assessing the impacts of humid heat on the low-income vulnerable population. The study aims to identify the heat index-based thresholds for the pilot districts and further push the policy for the adoption of heat index-based early warning systems for India.
Link: Webinar-proceedings.pdf
LinkedIn: Rohit Magotra
Highlights
MCRILG session with Rohit Magotra (IRADe)
This session centred on a deceptively simple but powerful challenge: how heat risk is understood, measured, and acted upon, particularly for those who experience it most acutely yet remain least visible in policy systems. Rohit Magotra drew on extensive practitioner-led work in India to illustrate how prevailing heat early warning systems, largely driven by maximum temperature thresholds, systematically underestimate risk when humidity, exposure, and lived conditions are overlooked.
A key message running through the presentation was that heat is not a uniform experience. In a geographically and socially diverse country like India, the same temperature conveys very different levels of stress depending on location, season, housing conditions, and access to infrastructure. Rohit showed how current frameworks struggle to capture this complexity, particularly during the pre-monsoon period when humidity intensifies heat stress long before extreme temperatures are reached.
The core of the work presented focused on developing heat index–based thresholds that reflect how people actually experience heat. Rather than waiting for mortality-based signals, the study adopted an anticipatory approach, asking when discomfort, illness, and loss of productivity begin to escalate among low-income households. Two pilot cities, Varanasi (riverine) and Balasur (coastal), were used to demonstrate how risk profiles diverge across climatic and social contexts, even at identical temperatures.
What distinguished this work was its depth of engagement at household level. Daily surveys captured people’s physical symptoms, perceptions of heat, access to water and electricity, working conditions, income loss, and exposure throughout both day and night. This was paired with highly localised climate data, including indoor sensors and outdoor weather stations, allowing heat stress to be analysed with much greater granularity than standard meteorological datasets allow. The findings showed clearly that humidity acts as a decisive multiplier of risk, often triggering widespread heat stress hours earlier and for much longer periods than temperature-based alerts suggest.
The discussion repeatedly returned to the implications for policy. Rohit made a compelling case that warning systems framed only around temperature create false reassurance, particularly in humid and coastal settings, while also missing cumulative and lagged effects of prolonged heat exposure. Importantly, the evidence highlighted how vulnerability is shaped not only by occupation or age, but by housing design, caregiving roles, comorbidities, and access to basic services, all factors that are rarely integrated into early warning frameworks.
Several practical insights emerged, including:
- Heat impacts often escalate after multiple consecutive days of high heat index, underscoring the importance of accounting for lag effects.
- Simple housing interventions, such as ventilation, wall treatments, or ceiling fans, can substantially reduce risk in low-income settings, though their effectiveness depends on context.
- Women, young children, the elderly, and indoor non-workers face distinctive and sometimes overlooked heat risks, particularly related to prolonged exposure rather than peak temperatures.
The session concluded with a rich interdisciplinary discussion, reflecting on the gap between what climate science demonstrates and what policy systems are structured to receive. Participants explored parallels across disciplines from health and psychology to economics and urban design and reflected on how evidence can be translated into actionable, trusted warnings without overwhelming or confusing the people they are meant to protect.
Questions and answers
How transferable are locally derived heat index thresholds to other regions?
The study was deliberately designed around low-income households, which represent the most heat-vulnerable populations across much of India. Because similar housing conditions, service gaps, and exposure patterns exist in hundreds of towns and cities, Rohit argued that the findings are highly scalable within comparable geographies, particularly for pre-monsoon conditions.
Why focus on heat index rather than temperature alone?
Temperature alone fails to capture how heat is actually felt and endured. The combination of temperature and humidity determines physiological stress, and the evidence showed that identical temperatures can pose vastly different risks depending on relative humidity. Heat index therefore provides a more realistic and protective basis for early warning.
Is there a risk that more complex warnings could confuse people or erode trust?
This concern was acknowledged as valid and important. However, Rohit emphasised that the goal is not complexity for its own sake, but clarity about impact. Heat index-based warnings aim to explain why risk exists even when temperatures appear familiar or “normal,” shifting communication towards anticipated harm rather than technical thresholds.
How receptive has the Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) been to this work?
IMD has been actively engaged throughout the process and has responded positively to the evidence. The collaboration builds on an existing institutional relationship, and the study supports IMD’s broader move towards impact-based forecasting rather than purely temperature-driven alerts.
Why focus on households rather than specific groups such as outdoor workers or by gender?
Using households as the unit of analysis captures overlapping vulnerabilities such as the presence of children, elderly people, pregnant women, or individuals with pre-existing conditions without fragmenting risk into isolated categories. This approach reflects lived realities more accurately and avoids narrowing heat risk to a single dimension.
What does this work imply for interdisciplinary research and policy engagement?
The findings underline that heat risk cannot be addressed through climate science alone. Effective responses require integration across health, housing, economics, psychology, and governance, alongside sustained engagement with institutions responsible for warnings and responses.