Ahmedabad municipal Corporation (AMC) and Meteorogical Department, Ahmedabad have joined hands to tackle the heat wave situations that people face during summer months every year.
As per the requirements of the meteorological department, AMC will provide land at 10 locations in the city to set up heat and humidity measurement units. Currently, only Ahmedabad airport has such facility.
Automatic rain gauge-cum-temperature recorder-cum-humidity measurement units are planned to be set up at 10 places in six zones of Ahmedabad, the proposal for which will be tabled before AMC standing committee on Wednesday. These units will monitor temperature difference in specific pockets of the city.
The civic body has proposed Sarkhej, Ognaj, Chandkheda, Astodia, Vasna, Naroda, Memco, Odhav, Bapunagar and Vatva as the 10 locations for these units.
This initiative is a result of a three-way memorandum of understanding (MoU) signed between AMC, Indian Institute of Public Health, Gandhinagar and Natural Resource Defence Council (NRDC), USA. A meeting in this matter had been convened between the meteorological department and AMC in May this year.
The MoU was signed with an aim to study the impact of climate change, especially heat wave conditions. In May 2010, 36 deaths and 186 cases due to heat stroke were reported in just six days from various hospitals in the city.
After the temperature difference is measured, Ahmedabad can be divided into different colour zones to make people aware about heat conditions in a particular area. Colours will range from green to orange to red denoting increasing temperature in that specific area. For example, a 37 degrees Celsius area will be marked in green while areas above 42 degrees Celsius will see a red band.
Speaking on the matter, Kamaljit Ray, director of IMD, Ahmedabad, said: "They (heat measurement units) will help us warn citizens about hot and cold wave conditions in the city."
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