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Urban Greening and Heat Island Monitoring Dashboard

Solution Overview

The city dashboard initiative enables municipal authorities to access and monitor information regarding urban greening and heat island effects at both city and ward levels. This approach addresses Mumbai's pronounced urban heat island effect, which has developed as the city underwent rapid urbanization, converting natural land cover with soil, water, and vegetation into urban paved areas.[2] The monitoring system supports the Mumbai Climate Action Plan's priority action track to increase vegetation cover and permeable surface to 30-40 percent of the city surface area by 2030 to tackle flood- and heat-related disaster risk.[2]

Technical Components

The dashboard provides data infrastructure to track urban greening metrics and land surface temperature variations across Mumbai's administrative wards. Measured land surface temperatures demonstrate that areas with low built-up density experience temperatures around 28°C, whereas high built-up urban areas exhibit significantly higher temperatures of approximately 34°C.[2] On the city's outskirts, where vegetation density and water coverage are more abundant, temperatures range from 21°C to 23°C.[2] The system enables monitoring of critical environmental indicators in Mumbai's P/North Ward, which covers an expansive 46.67 sq. km and is the most populous ward according to the 2011 census and the second largest by area.[5] The sharpest temperature jumps in P/North Ward are seen along the mangrove fringe, where debris dumping and reclamation have replaced cooling, moist ecosystems with heat-absorbing landfill and tin-roof housing.[5]

Implementation Details

The dashboard was developed as part of the Mumbai Climate Action Plan, which was launched in March 2022 by the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation in collaboration with the Government of Maharashtra, WRI India as knowledge partner, and C40 Cities as technical partner.[1] The initiative operates within MCAP's framework of 24 strategic action tracks spread across six core sectors: Energy and Buildings, Integrated Mobility, Sustainable Waste Management, Urban Greening and Biodiversity, Air Quality, and Urban Flooding and Water Resource Management.[1] The Urban Greening and Biodiversity section includes four plans: Heat resilience and carbon sequestration, Flood mitigation, Access to open spaces, and Improved Biodiversity.[3] On World Environment Day 2024, Mumbai released its first-ever Climate Budget Report, becoming the first urban local body in India—and only the fourth globally after Oslo, London, and New York—to do so.[1]

Benefits and Impacts

The monitoring system addresses critical environmental deficits in Mumbai, where green cover stands at merely 12.3%, one of the lowest percent areas within municipal limits identified as green.[4] The city has lost 43% of its green cover in three decades since the 1980s and currently has a per capita accessible open space of 1.08 sqm/person, much lower than the Urban and Regional Development Plans Formulation and Implementation guideline of 10-12 sqm/person for Indian cities.[4] Between 1980 and 2018, Mumbai lost 40% of green cover, 81% of open land, and an estimated 30% of water bodies, while a 66% rise has been observed in built-up areas.[3] The dashboard enables tracking of disparities across wards, as low income areas are found to have less green cover, with areas like Dongri and Bhuleshwar in Ward B and C being warmer than other areas.[3] Most affected areas are home to many vulnerable communities, with Bhandup and Mulund having a 73% and 54% slum population, respectively.[4]

Climate Adaptation Relevance

This monitoring approach directly addresses heat-related disaster risk by enabling authorities to track urban heat island intensity and vegetation coverage patterns across the city. The system supports climate adaptation efforts by providing data infrastructure to measure progress toward the 30-40 percent vegetation and permeable surface target by 2030, which tackles both flood- and heat-related disaster risk.[2]

[1]: wri-india.org [2]: wri-india.org [3]: wri-india.org [4]: wri-india.org [5]: wri-india.org

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