Most Indian cities are vulnerable to climate induced natural hazards (IRADe, 2014). There has also been an increase in the inefficiencies of urban infrastructure services in Indian cities as a result of rapid and unplanned urbanization (UNDP, 2017). Indian cities have grown multi-dimensional as a result of rapid urbanization, massive industrialization and technological spread backed by globalization impacting the early 2000. It has transformed the city fabric and the associated challenges. Therefore, an Urban Climate Vulnerability Assessment (UCVA) is needed to identify target and target recognize climate vulnerable urban cities, sector or populations. It is needed to, raise awareness, and to develop a holistic strategy to periodically monitor the state of climate vulnerability in those urban regions and raise awareness. For The UCVA framework consists of, seven broad thematic indicators - physical, hazard, social, demographic, financial provisioning, infrastructure and administration vulnerabilities, and their sub indicators to represent the climate vulnerability of the Indian cities. The assessment is done for seven Indian cities namely Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Bengaluru, Srinagar, Shillong and Ahmedabad. These cities are selected on the basis of their geographical location, population, ecosystem types and recent encounter with hazards/ hazard trends and the severity caused/ impact of the same, to understand and assess the respective vulnerabilities and risks incurred by them. It is done through a comprehensive assessment approach which uses a robust and predictive qualitative framework, whilst also acting as a vulnerability monitoring tool The comprehensive framework prepared can be replicated to both developing and developed country cities.

India has experienced exponential urban growth in the last few decades. The urban population of India has grown from 285 million in 2001 to 377 million in 2011 (Census (GoI), 2014), which is likely to touch 533 million by 2025 (Census of India, 2006). The pattern of urbanization in India is characterized by continuous concentration of population and activities in large cities. Urbanization exerts environmental stress (air, water and land pollution, deforestation, construction activities) which also increases the risk of frequency of natural disasters like floods, landslides, water scarcity and likewise.

Cities have complex and inter-connected systems where services rely increasingly upon uninterrupted infrastructure networks. Disruption of these services would have repercussions on the functioning of the city and the well-being of its residents. Due to concentration of people and property, a hazard can turn into disasters that affect millions of people and property with aggregate worth billions.

The present circumstance where Indian economy is on the path of rapid growth, cities cannot function on their usual ways. It is for this reason that we require a climate resilient urban planning using an assessment of the climate vulnerabilities and risks. Climate change is an inevitable and pressing environmental concern for developed as well as developing economies and will likely to add additional stress on urban infrastructure and lifeline services. Climate induced stress on urban services will impact residents in many direct (urban floods, hot and cold periods, water shortage, and increased morbidity and mortality from hazard events, stress from sea level rise and increased cyclonic storms) and indirect ways (rise in ozone gas resulting in exacerbation of Asthma, increase in the vector growth responsible for conditions like dengue, malaria, chikungunya, etc. owing to the increased temperatures). The IPCC special report on “Managing the risks of Extreme Events and Disasters to Advance climate Change Adaptation” (UN IPCC, 2012), establishes a strong link between extreme weather events and climate change. It explains the causal relation between both and the correlated events including urban floods, cyclonic storms, heat waves and droughts. The unprecedented extreme weather events are result of the distortion in the natural climate. The phenomenon might affect the spatial extent, frequency, duration and trend of the extreme climate weather events. Morbidity from climate change could rise in cities, especially among populations that are vulnerable.

The UN's Sustainable Development Goal (SDG 11) (UN, 2019) on city resilience is now accepted as a critical urban agenda. For achieving SDG 11, cities are striving towards affordable basic services, livable housing conditions, sustainable transport systems and urban development, efficient waste management, accessible greens, participatory governance and local level strategies with a focus on risk reduction. Inefficient urban systems act as a hindrance to combat climate change, making urban areas less resilient. Hence the growing interest in bringing resilience is backed by addressing the short and long terms challenges of climate change.

31% of the population in India live in urban areas and the pace of urbanization is projected to increase. According to the world cities report of 2018 the population of cities like Delhi, Mumbai and Bengaluru will increase by 27%, 22% and 30% respectively in 2030.The existing demand and supply gap of infrastructure services is further widened by unplanned development and growing population. The inadequacies progress into creating a negative feedback loop.

According to the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) 58.6% of the Indian landmass is vulnerable to floods and river erosions, 5700 kilometers of country’s coastline is vulnerable to tsunamis and cyclones, and more than half (68 %) of its cultivable area is drought prone. In terms of the magnitude of disasters faced by India, it has been found that within a period of thirty years (1980-2010) the country has experienced a total of 431 disaster events, killing 43,039 lives and affecting 1521 million people. The total economic damage caused by these disasters were approximately US$ 48 billion. On an average the natural disasters affect 49 million people per year in India and bring estimated economic damages of US$ 1.55 billion to the country’s economy.

Past decadal incidents like Maharashtra floods of 2005 resulting in the death toll of 1000 plus, 2013 flash floods in Uttrakhand and Himachal Pradesh affecting around 5700 people, Kerala floods of 2018 causing the causalities of 433 and heat waves of 2013 affecting states like - Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Odisha (Orissa), Rajasthan and Assam, depicts the vulnerability of Indian states and the need for disaster risk management in the urban India. Furthermore, recent events of disasters experienced by Indian cities like the cyclone Nisarga, cyclone Nirvar, Locusts attack, Kerala, Assam and Bihar floods, have exposed the vulnerability of Indian cities to multiple hazards. Cities incur heavy economic losses due to these hazards. As per the Central Water Commission data, US$ 0.63 billion is the total economic loss from the weather event flood in the last 65 years, from 1952 to 2018. The loss is inclusive of crops, housing and miscellaneous damages. Climate change is correlated to the intensity and frequency of the extreme weather events. The lives and live hoods of million people is affected by these events. Climate change erodes the developmental policies and affects the economic performance of the country.

The extreme weather events in the country in past decades have impacted numerous regions. They have adversely affected the lives and livelihood of the people. Many climate events in the recent past lead to the loss of lives and properly due to the absence of preparedness.

In the recent decades the increased number of extreme weather events (EWEs), which are., heatwaves, cold waves, tropical cyclones, floods, lightning, heavy rainfalls, and likewise highly impacted various regions of the Indian subcontinent leading to losses of lives and property and adversely affecting the livelihood of the vulnerable community. In a study by Kamaljit Ray (Kamaljit et al, 2021)., the trend analysis of last 50 years (1970-2019), depicts mortalities caused by extreme weather events. It is observed that the floods (46.1%) cause the highest share of deaths followed by cyclones (28.6%) and Heat wave (12.3%)

A draft methodology for the Urban Climate Vulnerability Assessment (UCVA) was developed after a detailed review of the existing literature available on various frameworks and indexes. The review was spread across international to national studies and the intersection between the both. In order to tabulate a comprehensive indexing, the research was not limited to sector specific but also many national and international successful frameworks were refereed such as Swachh Surveskshan and Urban Governance Index respectively.

Urban Governance Index (UGI) (UN - Habitat, 2004) provided a quantitative top-down and vice versa approach for developing an index to measure good urban governance based on the five principles namely effectiveness, equity, participation, accountability and security. The Environmental Vulnerability Index (EVI) (South Pacific Applied Geoscience Commission, 2004) provided the basis for understanding the different aspects of vulnerability, environment, society and economy also knows as the three pillars as defined in the index. . It used 50 Smart indicators to measure status of vulnerability which otherwise are difficult to quantify in absence of a simplified model. The City Prosperity Initiative (CPI) (UN Habitat, 2014) identifies the various areas of potential and opportunities for the cities to be more prosperous. It comprises of six ‘spokes’ also known as six sub-indices , namely, productivity, infrastructure, quality of life, equity and inclusion, environmental sustainability and governance and legislation for the assessment. . The City Disaster Resilience Scorecard (UNISDR, 2017) follows the UNISDR’s ‘Ten Essential For Making Cities Resilient’ in order to assess a city’s disaster resilience. The developed scorecard reviews the progress and the associated challenges in the implementation of Sendai Framework for the disaster risk reduction:2015-2030. It is an assessment for local government to monitor and review the steps taken in order to combat the risks. The City Resilience Index (ARUP, 2015) defines the ‘immune system of the city’. It represents all the aspects where the weakness in one area may be compensated by the strength in another to assess a city’s vulnerability. The Swachh Surveskshan (Ministry of Urban Development, Government of India, 2017) is a policy management tool devised to rank cities on the bases of the Swachhta index. It is a comprehensive and inclusive assessment framework which provides ranking based on cumulative scored obtained on the basis of three major data collection sources namely – municipal documentation, independent observation and citizen feedback. The Hazards, Infrastructure, Governance, and Socio- economic (HIGS) framework developed by Integrated Research and Action for Development (IRADe) calculates the Rapid Vulnerability Assessment (Parikh, Jindal, & Sandal, 2008) of cities. The assessment is based on the framework comprising information on four major themes – physical and metrological hazards, governance institutions, infrastructure and urban services and socioeconomic and demographic composition, which contain 23 indicators. Disaster Resilience Framework (Parikh, Jindal, & Sandal, 2008) is a holistic methodology to assess vulnerability by incorporating factors allowing local/regional diversification and flexibility to be customized for use in other regions/cities for calculating disaster resilience. The vulnerability of the cities was categorized as high, medium, low depending upon the impact and exposure of city to the disasters.

The final vulnerability score obtained by comparing all the seven thematic indicators of the selected seven cities represents Srinagar as the most vulnerable city, followed by Bengaluru and Ahmedabad.

It is observed that each selected city is exposed to climate-induced hazards. The majority of exposure in the cities falls in the range above 20% of the total population, affecting 10% to 20% of the total population on average. In extreme cases caused by extreme events, the death and casualties reported on an average lie in the range of 50-200. Within the range of national density growth rate and population growth rate, it is seen that the Indian cities are growing rapidly. Moreover, the frequency of hazard occurrences has relatively changed in most of the selected cities over the past decades. Therefore, there is a need for preparedness strategies to combat the current risks involved with each growing city.

The funds available for disaster risk management and dedicated disaster management budget allocation are missing for most cities. For the cities which have access to the DRR funds, it is observed that they are unable to utilize the same. Therefore, the risk reduction measures are not utilized as per their intended purpose

The slum projection depicts an increase of 10% and above on average. In most Indian cities, the slum population is located in or in the vicinity of vulnerable or hazard-prone areas. This results in an increased risk of a vulnerable section of society. The direct impact is seen on the economically weaker sections, and the pressure imposed on the natural resources demand due to the same. Basic infrastructure in all the selected Indian cities is not matching the standards of SLBs. The reasons include lack of budgets, and the mechanism and technology to handle the demand. There is a considerable need to incorporate various elements of the urban system to derive holistic and sustainable solutions.

Therefore, through the UCVI, each Indian city can thematically derive their respective strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats to the system. This method analyses cross-cutting themes and derives the cumulative score of each theme from the vulnerability score. This will help in guiding the policies and principles for better risk management.