IIT Bhubaneswar study finds Urban Heat Island Effect in Bhubaneswar City

New Delhi: Rapid and unplanned urbanization of cities and a concomitant reduction in vegetation results in increased rise in temperature compared with surrounding non-urban areas. To explain how this happens, a team of researchers from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bhubaneswar, Jatni, studied the warming of Bhubaneswar, a tier-2 city, due to rapid urbanization and compared it to surrounding non-urban areas.

The research team led by Dr. D. Swain, Assistant Professor from the School of Earth, Ocean and Climate Sciences at IIT Bhubaneswar found that increase in urbanization in Bhubaneswar has been rapid at 83% in the last 15 years.This has led to about 89% decrease in dense vegetation, about 2% decrease in water bodies, and nearly 83% decrease in crop fields during the same period. Decrease in crop areas could either be due to urbanization or fields remaining fallow.

The research was carried out as part of a project sponsored by Dept. of Science & Technology (Govt. of India) and UK-India Education and Research Initiative (Govt. of UK) in collaboration with University of Southampton, UK.