Adapting to Climatic Extremes through Climate Resilient Industrial Landscapes: Building Capacities in the Southern Indian States of Telangana and Andhra Pradesh

Abstract

There is now greater confidence and understanding of the consequences of anthropogenic caused climate change. One of the many impacts of climate change, has been the occurrence of extreme climatic events, recent studies indicate that the magnitude, frequency, and intensity of hydro-meteorological events such as heat waves, cyclones, droughts, wildfires, and floods are expected to increase several fold in the coming decades. These climatic extremes are likely to have social, economic, and environmental costs to nations across the globe. There is an urgent need to prepare various stakeholders to these disasters through capacity building and training measures. Here, we present an analysis of the capacity needs assessment of various stakeholders to climate change adaptation in industrial parks in two southern states of India. Adaptation to climate change in industrial areas is an understudied yet highly urgent requirement to build resilience among stakeholders in the Indian subcontinent. The capacity needs assessment was conducted in two stages, participatory rural appraisal (PRA) and focus group discussion (FGD) were conducted among various stakeholders to determine the current capacities for climate change adaptation (CCA) for both, stakeholders and functional groups. Our analysis indicates that in the states of Telangana and Andhra Pradesh, all stakeholder groups require low to high levels of retraining in infrastructure and engineering, planning, and financial aspects related to CCA. Our study broadly supports the need for capacity building and retraining of functionaries at local and state levels in various climate change adaptation measures; likewise industry managers need support to alleviate the impacts of climate change. Specific knowledge, skills, and abilities, with regard to land zoning, storm water management, developing building codes, green financing for CCA, early warning systems for climatic extremes, to name a few are required to enhance and build resilience to climate change in the industrial landscapes of the two states.