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temperatures, with a variation of one to five degrees; the monthly average maximum temperatures are likely to increase by around 0.5
o
C per decade. With Surat’s high humidity levels, rises in temperature may increase levels
of discomfort for much of the year. Most stakeholders in the city are unaware of future risks arising
from rapid urbanization and climate change. For example, the city has expanded in the coastal zone and there are no land use rules in place to
prevent urban growth especially high-value real estate in current and future high-risk zones. The coastal area may, in fact, become some of the
most sought-after real estate.
b. City vulnerability assessment
A citywide vulnerability assessment has highlighted the vulnerability of households in Surat, but in particular that of slum dwellers and low-
income populations residing in riverine areas in homes that are not usually able to withstand floodwaters. This vulnerability assessment was
carried out as part of the process initiated by the Asian Cities Climate Change Resilience Network ACCCRN, where Surat is one of the 10 core
cities Box 1.
The assessment involved interviews with 929 households in 110 settlements and looked at the level of education, social networks
and access to lifeline services, income stability and use of loans or insurance, physical infrastructure water supply, sewers, roads
and water scarcity. It also drew on Google Earth maps to delineate homogeneous areas based on factors such as building densities, roof
types and road network distribution, thus allowing the definition of areas or neighbourhoods that are likely to be populated by fairly
homogeneous socioeconomic groups, namely slum, lower income, middle income, mixed residential and commercial and upper income.
Small area surveys of buildings and household questionnaires provided detailed on-the-ground data.
Of all those surveyed and across all socioeconomic categories, 22 per cent were unskilled, for example, hawkers and vendors or
workers who
B O X 1 The Asian Cities Climate Change Resilience Network ACCCRN
ACCCRN is an initiative launched by the Rockefeller Foundation in late 2007, which focused initially on 10 cities across four countries Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia and India and is now expanding to include
cities in Bangladesh and the Philippines. In India, the three core ACCCRN cities were Surat, Indore and Gorakhpur, with activities now being scaled up to other cities through a network of partner organizations.
In Surat and Indore, city level processes have been implemented with the support of TARU, a consultancy firm that has worked with city actors during the ACCCRN process.
The aims of ACCCRN are to build the capacity of cities to plan, finance, coordinate and implement climate change resilience strategies, while building a network of knowledge around urban climate change
resilience and scaling up action to a wider range of cities and actors. In the 10 core cities, a process of vulnerability assessment was carried out, leading to the development of city-specific resilience strategies
from which interventions to build resilience could be prioritized and implemented. In Surat, ACCCRN support is facilitating the development of the end-to-end early warning system and the Surat Urban Health and
Research Centre, which opened in March 2013.
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support the construction and transport sectors and 12 per cent were semi-skilled. Seventy-five per cent of the slum population figured in
these categories. Unskilled workers are often more vulnerable to floods because they are paid daily. Generally, the lower socioeconomic groups
and new migrants face greater difficulties with income insecurity and have the most trouble coping with any disruption to their income during
the time it takes for industries to resume production after flooding. Migrants may face particular difficulties because of their lack of social
contacts – and there is a high proportion of migrants from distant states among the Surat population, especially among the slum population,
more than half of whom came from further afield than Gujarat and 10 or 11 per cent were from Uttar Pradesh and Orissa, among the poorest
states.
The interviews confirmed that the city has an efficient solid waste collection system, which was put in place after an outbreak of the plague
in 1994; 65 per cent of slum households had house-to-house collections and all other socioeconomic categories had an even higher proportion
served, with, for example, 99 per cent of households served among high- income groups.
With regard to flood risks, households were classified according to an index based on damage from floods, depth of inundation and
flood duration. The GIS-based analysis suggested that around 71,000 households are subject to Khadi flooding around half live within 50
metres of the streams and around 450,000 households are vulnerable to flooding from emergency releases from the Ukai dam. Most of the slums
and low-income settlements are near or within the flood risk zones and had higher flood vulnerability indices, although many higher-income
households were also at risk, especially those living on the ground or first floors of housing.
Direct risk from sea level rise affects around 5,000 households located along tidal creeks. The zone most at risk from sea level rise is not yet
heavily populated, comprising a few thousand houses near Dumas beach. But this problem is expected to grow unless real estate development can
be controlled in the areas at risk.
c. The city resilience strategy
