Indian Institute of Public Health-Gandhinagar (IIPH-G), SAFAR Programme,2022 Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM),Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC),Gujarat Energy Research Management Institute (GERMI),Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), 2022
Author(s): Dileep Mavalankar, Priya Dutta, Prashant Rajput, Chirag Shah, Gufran Beig, Sujit Maji, Suvarna Tikle, Akhilesh Magal, Jay Joshi; Vijay Limaye, Polash Mukerjee, Prima Madan, Anjali Jaiswal, Kim Knowlton
Air pollution is a major global public health risk in cities across the world. It is one of the highest-ranking global environmental health challenges, especially in developing countries like India.1 In the World Health Organization’s (WHO) 2014 urban air quality assessment, 13 of the top 20 most polluted cities for fine particulate air pollution were located in India.2
Ahmedabad, in western India, is one of India’s largest and fastest growing urban areas, with a population over 7.3 million.5
The WHO urban air quality database, and several international and Indian studies have identified Ahmedabad as one of the most polluted cities in the world. In 2010, an estimated 4,900 premature deaths attributed to excessive ambient air pollution occurred in Ahmedabad.6
Climate change could worsen these air pollution-health problems, but emission mitigation efforts could deliver substantial co-benefits for air quality and health, both today (via reduced air pollution) and in the future (via reduced emission of the heat-trapping pollution that intensifies climate change).
Ahmedabad has shown strong political will to improve air quality, evidenced by the city’s 2017 Air Information & Response (AIR) Plan,7 an air pollution response plan supporting monitoring, air quality forecasting, and an emissions inventory attributing pollution contributions by sector.
The Ahmedabad AIR Plan is the first of its kind in India, developed by the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC) with national and international experts, and. It adapted learnings on air pollution-health risk communication from Beijing, Los Angeles, Mexico City and New Delhi.
“Tackling air pollution is a priority issue for Ahmedabad,” said Ahmedabad’s then-Mayor Gautam Shah in 2017. “We are proud to be launching the AIR Plan as we take the health of our citizens very seriously.”
Dr. Chirag Shah from AMC says, “Keeping health as the focus of its action on air pollution, in 2017, the city of Ahmedabad developed the first of its kind health risk communication plan on air pollution called the Air Information and Response (AIR) Plan. Since then the city has been implementing the health-based components of the plan focused on vulnerable sections of the population, raising awareness on air pollution. We are happy to now see other cities in the country adopt the plan and we look forward to cross-learnings and experience-sharing.”
To further explore the opportunities for local health “co-benefits” — that is, health benefits both today from reduced air pollution, and in future from lessened climate change– a team of partners are now developing an interdisciplinary modeling approach to quantify the air quality-health co-benefits of ambitious mitigation and adaptation policies in Ahmedabad.
Through collaboration among the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM), Gujarat Energy Research & Management Institute (GERMI), India Institute of Public Health- Gandhinagar (IIPH-G), and the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC). This work was supported by the Wellcome Trust [grant 216093/Z/19/Z], and could help motivate transformative climate actions, on both the mitigation and adaptation sides, and help deliver near-term health benefits by 2030.
The text of this case study is based on the submission from the case study lead organization received through the 2021 call for case studies on health and climate change, and does not endorse or reflect the views of the World Health Organization or any of its activities.
