Increasing dust storms and heat waves in Northern India: What’s the matter?

By Alaina Ali Beg

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Northern India, specifically Rajasthan, Delhi, Punjab, Uttar Pradesh and Haryana, is expected to witness even a hotter than normal summer this year, according to the India Meteorological Department (IMD). Similar conditions would also prevail in Odisha and Chhattisgarh as spillover.

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Impacts of Heat waves:

1. India has been projected to lose 5.8 per cent of working hours in 2030 or loss equivalent to 34 million full time jobs. This can be either due to inherent working conditions developed then or the slow pace adapted out of it.

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5. The biggest threat is definitely to the human lives as these storms have the potential to cause respiratory issues and even lung cancer. Similarly, extreme heatwaves can cause heat stroke.

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Strategy: To face such events, one must adapt and mitigate appropriately. Planning needs to be done effectively to manage such crisis through the following plausible steps:

1. Forecasting these extreme events and early monitoring of such spells.
2. Building healthcare capacity to deal with health emergencies caused due to such disturbed weather events which tend to be more frequent in future.
3. Community outreach is required to update them on such issues and threats, through media.
4. Inter-agency cooperation and engagement to deal efficiently through such gross times is important.

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