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“Sometimes it gets so hot, I can’t think straight,” said Chunara, sporting a black smartwatch that contrasts sharply with her colourful bangles and sari.
Chunara is one of 204 residents of Vanzara Vas given the smartwatches for a year-long study to find out how heat affects vulnerable communities around the world. The watches measure heart rate and pulse and track sleep, and participants get weekly blood pressure checks.
Data collector Komal Parmar, right, talks with Sapnaben Chunara to get heat related information in Ahmedabad, India.AP Photo/Ajit Solanki
Researchers also painted some roofs with reflective paint to reduce indoor heat and will compare them to homes without so-called cool roofs using indoor heat sensors. Along with the smartwatches, this will help them understand how much cool roofs can help poor households deal with India’s scorching summers.
A man applies reflective paint on the roof of a house to reduce indoor heat in Ahmedabad, India.AP Photo/Ajit Solanki
Chunara, whose home didn't get a cool roof, said she's happy to participate by wearing the watch, confident the results will help her family, too.
"They might paint my roof as well, and they might be able to do something that helps all of us in this area cope with the heat better,” Chunara said.
An increasingly hot planet, due largely to burning fossil fuels such as coal and gas that release carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, means already hot regions are getting even worse.
A 2023 study estimated that if the global mean temperature continues to rise to just under 2 degrees Celsius, there would be a 370 per cent rise in heat-related deaths around the world, and most would happen in South and Southeast Asia and Africa.
“This is a big concern, and it also shows the heat divide” between the poor and wealthy, said Abhiyant Tiwari, a climate expert with the Natural Resources Defence Council and part of the group conducting the research in Ahmedabad.
In the summer of 2010, the city witnessed nearly 1,300 excess deaths — how many more people died than would be expected — which experts found were most likely due to high temperatures.
Following the 2010 tragedy, city officials, with help from public health and heat experts, devised an action plan to warn citizens when the heat is at dangerous levels and prepare city hospitals to respond rapidly to heat-related illness. The plan has been replicated across India and other parts of South Asia.
I studied design in Ahmedabad's National Institute of Design. Reading this helps explain the design of our campus, architecture that emphasized air circulation and natural cooling. Mind you, I was there umpteen million years ago in 1989-1990.