Safeguarding a UNESCO World Heritage City: Disaster Resilience for the Walled City of Jaipur

Jaipur's historic urban fabric embodies generations of climate-responsive design. Narrow lanes channel airflow, traditional building materials help regulate indoor temperatures, and historic water management systems were designed to accommodate seasonal rainfall patterns.

However, the city now faces evolving risks associated with extreme weather events, urbanisation, and changing patterns of exposure. The dense built environment can constrain emergency access, heritage structures require context-sensitive approaches to risk reduction, and conventional interventions are often unsuitable within protected precincts.

In collaboration with the Archaeological Survey of India, Nagar Nigam Jaipur, and PDCOR Ltd., STS is developing a Disaster Management Plan for Jaipur's Walled City. The plan integrates risk assessment with heritage conservation principles, drawing on local knowledge, traditional practices, and the unique characteristics of the historic built environment.

Reading the Mountain as One System: Digital Climate Vulnerability Atlas for Uttarakhand

In partnership with the Government of Uttarakhand and GIZ, and ICARS, IIT Roorkee, we are developing a state-wide climate vulnerability and risk assessment atlas for one of the Himalaya's most climatically sensitive states. Uttarakhand faces a widening range of extreme events, from floods, landslides, and glacial lake outburst floods to forest fires, drought, and heat stress, each amplified by rising temperatures, shifting monsoons, and glacier retreat.

Building on the high-resolution climate projections developed by IIT Roorkee under the CAFRI II initiative, our work translates this science into actionable, block-level insight: quantifying how hazards are likely to behave, assessing the physical, social, and economic vulnerability of key sectors under growth scenarios reaching fifty years ahead, and mapping where these pressures intersect.

The result is a Climate Vulnerability Atlas, paired with location-specific adaptation and mitigation measures, designed to help the state anticipate risk rather than respond to loss, and to plan for the people and ecosystems that depend on the mountain.

Heat Resilience at the Last Mile: Tracking Community Cooling in an Urban Informal Settlement

As part of AVPN's Lighthouse Project on heat and health, this initiative recognises that the two cannot be addressed in isolation. The heat emergency is not on the street. It is inside the home.
Families living under tin roofs in Dakshin Puri, South Delhi face indoor temperatures that exceed outdoor readings long into the night, as heat absorbed through the day radiates back into poorly ventilated rooms, disrupting sleep, straining cardiovascular systems, and compounding existing health vulnerabilities across age, gender, and income. Heat amplifies every vulnerability a household already faces, often quietly and invisibly.

In partnership with Chintan Environmental Research and Action Group, the project works directly in the settlement to understand and address thermal conditions that official forecasts and Heat Action Plans do not reach. The work combines household thermal monitoring, community engagement, and the testing of practical interventions: cool roofs, shade structures, a community cooling shelter, and cooling streets that give residents a place to recover when their homes cannot. Low-cost, locally sourced materials are being explored so that solutions can be built, managed, and adapted by communities themselves.

The project positions heat response as a question of access, not just awareness.

Nurturing Resilience from the Ground Up: The Safer Communities Innovation Lab

The Safer Communities Innovation Lab, part of a DFID-Start Network and CDAC supported Disasters and Emergencies Preparedness Programme (DEPP) Labs programme co-established by STS, identified and supported community-led innovations to reduce disaster risk. Based in Korail, Bangladesh’s largest informal settlement, the initiative moved beyond innovation buzzwords to empower vulnerable communities. It provided small grants and a supportive ecosystem, co-creating a vital community space that served as a hub for collaboration. The lab helped develop and refine hyper-local solutions such as green walls for cooling, mobile-based community radio, and a network of emergency-trained pharmacists. Through iterative mentoring, these community-led ideas matured into practical, scalable innovations. STS connected innovators with government and development organisations to sustain and scale impact, strengthening broader resilience ecosystems through complementary research and capacity building. The project was led in partnership with Dhaka Community Health Trust (DCH), University of New South Wales (UNSW), Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters (CRED) at the University of Louvain, and the Asian NGO network ADRRN.

Vulnerability Mapping for Climate Resilience in Puri, Odisha

In collaboration with Selco Foundation, we assessed climate vulnerabilities and livelihood risks for low-income communities in Puri, Odisha. Using a mix of GIS mapping, literature review, and on-the-ground surveys, the study identified how cyclones, floods, and heatwaves threaten lives, homes, and incomes. A participatory methodology spotlighted five highly vulnerable communities, integrating gender, age, and disability dimensions. Local voices gathered through focus groups informed an inclusive, evidence-based adaptation strategy, emphasising community empowerment and policy reform to safeguard Puri's most at-risk residents.

Hyperlocal Air Quality Intelligence for Regulatory Action

For the Hyperlocal Mapping of Air Pollution project with UNDP (Climate & Energy Lacuna Fund), we deployed IoT sensors and AI-driven predictive modelling to generate precise, actionable data. This intelligence supported the development of use-case scenarios for implementing targeted regulatory actions and cost-effective pollution management strategies for State Pollution Control Boards and Development Authorities in Bihar and Gurugram, Haryana.

Roadmap for Transformative Change: A Decadal Corporate Social Responsibility Strategy

Our partnership with the InterGlobe Foundation (IGF) is co-creating a 10-year strategic roadmap to guide its CSR investments toward sustained, high-impact outcomes. Anchored in procedural humility, the process centres on deep listening to communities and local stakeholders to surface priorities that reflect lived realities. This co-creation ensures interventions are contextually grounded and community-led. The roadmap identifies areas where patient, long-term capital can unlock transformative social impact across themes like heritage conservation, environmental stewardship, and livelihood resilience.

Leading with Lived Experience: Inclusive Evacuation in Indonesia

In Indonesia’s disaster-prone Mount Merapi region, we supported Yakkum Emergency Unit (YEU) and CIQAL to develop an inclusive disaster preparedness model. This innovation directly addressed the exclusion of persons with disabilities (PWDs) by creating a real-time database, a community-owned evacuation SOP, and a local advocacy group. Unique for its leadership by PWDs, the system ensured solutions reflected lived experience. With CLIP mentoring, the project explored scaling pathways—from integration into local governance to replication in neighbouring villages—anchored in procedural humility and sustainable community ownership.

Catalyzing Urban Impact: Investment Strategies for Systemic Change

In collaboration with the HT Parekh Foundation, we conducted in-depth city-level studies to formulate impact investment strategies for urban India. Focusing on heat resilience, waste management, and water systems, our approach combined infrastructure readiness assessments, governance analysis, and community vulnerability mapping. This multi-faceted evaluation identified where philanthropic capital could be most catalytic, particularly in underserved and high-risk urban zones, guiding investments toward high social return and equitable development.

Embedding Inclusion into Disaster Governance: Multi-Hazard Plans for Maharashtra

Working with district authorities supported by UNDP, we developed comprehensive District Departmental Disaster Management Plans (DDDMPs) for 16 departments across Pune and Raigad. These data-driven plans address unique multi-hazard risks—from industrial accidents to flash floods—through an inclusive lens. A core commitment to "leave no one behind" integrated the specific needs of women, children, the elderly, persons with disabilities, LGBTQIA+, and tribal communities. Through risk mapping and simulation exercises, we empowered officials to test protocols and strengthen inter-departmental coordination, creating replicable models for resilient local governance.

Rethinking Scale: A Community-Led Framework for Innovation

Innovation scaling requires a radical departure from traditional models. Through the Community-Led Innovation Partnership (CLIP), we championed an approach rooted in the agency and aspirations of communities themselves. Moving beyond mere geographic expansion, we co-designed a framework defining scale from a community perspective: as impact depth, ownership transfer, and systemic embedding. This was supported by nine practical scaling attributes, hands-on tools, and training modules to help local actors sustain change. The strategies were successfully applied and tested with partners like CDP in the Philippines, YEU in Indonesia, CAFOD in South Sudan, and ASECSA in Guatemala.

Climate Migration: Stories of humans and homes

This research project focuses on climate-impacted populations displaced to cities, where they settle in informal housing, facing increased vulnerabilities. The project aims to map these vulnerabilities using housing inadequacy as an indicator and develop risk reduction strategies. Key activities include creating and testing a risk assessment tool, scaling risk reduction models, vulnerability measurement, and engaging in policy advocacy. The goal is to reduce disaster risks for displaced families, particularly women and girls, through locally-driven actions.