Urban precipitation dynamics risk assessment across Indian smart cities

Abstract

The rising urban flood events with variable precipitation patterns across Indian cities make them vulnerable to precipitation extremes and cause huge economic losses. Considering this, the Indian Smart Cities Mission was initiated in 2015 to make cities resilient to climate change and promote the nation’s growth. Thus, we quantify the historical precipitation variability in precipitation amount and days. Further, we assessed the nonstationary influence of the El Nino Southern Oscillations, Indian Ocean Dipole, and Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillations on future precipitation extremes projections for 10, 25, 50, and 100 year return levels. Based on this, we computed the hazard due to precipitation dynamics across Indian cities and found it to be maximum for Silvassa city. Subsequently, we assessed the vulnerability of the cities based on the urban infrastructure and development and exposure to the regional population and economy to compute the risk for Indian cities. The study revealed that Ahmedabad, Thane, and Surat cities observed maximum risk due to precipitation dynamics in a changing climate. Further, we observed that risk was induced due to precipitation dynamics and associated extremes observed to be maximum in the Northwest, West Central, and Central Northeast precipitation zones. It assists policymakers in enhancing the urban climate action plan to make cities resilient to urban flood events. © 2025 The Author(s). Published by IOP Publishing Ltd.