No. 1 (2025): Southern transitions. Facing climate change and ecological degradation in the Global South
Ricerche

Rethinking urban climate adaptation. Psycho-environmental dimensions of Ahmedabad’s Heat Action Plan

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  • Deepika Shukla,
  • Srajati Tiwari
Deepika Shukla
School of Planning and Architecture, New Delhi, India
Srajati Tiwari
School of Planning and Architecture, Vijayawada, India
DOI: https://doi.org/10.36253/contest-16062

Published 2025-11-18

Keywords

  • urban climate,
  • adaptation,
  • eco-psychology,
  • Heat Action Plan,
  • planetary justice,
  • psychosocial resilience
    • ...More
    Less

How to Cite

Shukla, D., & Tiwari, S. (2025). Rethinking urban climate adaptation. Psycho-environmental dimensions of Ahmedabad’s Heat Action Plan. Contesti. Città, Territori, Progetti, (1), 206–225. https://doi.org/10.36253/contest-16062

Copyright (c) 2025 Deepika Shukla, Srajati Tiwari

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

Abstract

This paper examines the psychological and social dimensions of urban heat in Ahmedabad, India, through a mixed-methods design that combined stratified household surveys, semi-structured interviews, and GIS-based Urban Heat Island (UHI) mapping conducted between April and June 2023. The findings reveal that extreme heat is closely associated with heightened anxiety, sleep disruption, and pervasive feelings of helplessness during heatwaves, with hotspot analysis confirming overlaps between elevated land surface temperature zones and areas of intensified psychosocial stress. While Ahmedabad’s Heat Action Plan (HAP) has been instrumental in reducing heat-related mortality, it continues to operate within a largely technocratic framework. This paper proposes the incorporation of measurable psychosocial indicators and community-centred interventions as a means to operationalize eco-psychology and planetary justice within the HAP. In terms of policy relevance, the study provides concrete, time-bound recommendations for embedding psychosocial metrics into municipal heat-response frameworks, thereby advancing a more inclusive, human-centred model of climate adaptation.

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References

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