Relationship between daily precipitation extremes and temperature in changing climate across smart cities of Central India

Abstract

The Central India region is observing a rise in extreme precipitation events. Its impact is enhanced across the urban regions due to their higher population and economic potential. In this study, we assessed the historical (1951–2022) Clausius Clapeyron relation between daily precipitation extremes (Pex) with daily maximum temperature (Tmax) and dew point (DPT) for ten smart cities of Central India. Further, future (2023–2100) assessments have been carried out for SSP 245 and 585 scenarios between Tmax and different Pex using NEX-GDDP-CMIP6 datasets. The future assessment is further classified for near (NF: 2023–2050) and far (FF:2051–2100) future periods. We determined that historically, Tmax has not been prominent in enhancing regional Pex. However, DPT enhanced the regional Pex with super scaling rates maximum of 17 %°C−1. In the future, we observed that scaling rates between Tmax and Pex enhanced in SSP 245 and 585, respectively. Cities like Satna, Sagar, and Jabalpur tend to have positive scaling in the future. Therefore, DPT is a better predictor of precipitation extremes and assists in precise predictive modeling for enhancing regional urban sustainability and mitigating urban flood risk. However, the rise in Tmax has influenced the precipitation extremes substantially since the far future period. Overall, it will assist the concerned smart cities policymakers and scientific community in making Indian cities resilient to climate change. © 2025 Elsevier Ltd