Towards a better city index: developing a urban climate resilience index
Student name: Ms Ayesha Sehrawat
Guide: Dr Prateek Sharma
Year of completion: 2016
Host Organisation: Public Affairs Center, Bangalore
Supervisor (Host Organisation): Mr Arvind L. Sha
Abstract: This study aimed to develop an index which gives a holistic coverage to the topic of urban climate change resilience. The four pillars of urban resilience – institutional, economic, ecological and social resilience would be assessed and formulated into a single composite index. In this report the components of institutional and ecological resilience have been assessed in the form of governance index and environmental index. This index hopes to provide an assessment criterion for developing a climate resilient city/ climate smart city. The environment index was devised using expert opinion and already formulated and accepted international indicators. This index was used to score and compare the resilience of two cities – Bangalore and New Delhi. The governance index was based on the principle of good governance. The components of good governance were used to formulate targets and indicators for a qualitative assessment of institutional resilience of the city of Bangalore. The Governance issues were identified for Bangalore based on the scoring by the index developed. The intrinsic resilience possessed by these cities were charted out. Further inclusion of social and economic index has been suggested to make BCI a holistic index made with a systems approach.
Key words: Climate Change Resilience, Urban resilience, Composite Index, Good Governance, New Delhi, Bangalore
