Data Analytics and Reflections from a Research Project on Heat in Informal Settlements
Introduction and Background
In 2023, the Indian Institute of Technology, Hyderabad, with the support of Swastik Harish and Associates and the Hyderabad Urban Labs conducted a series of studies around heat in informal settlements in the city of Hyderabad, India. Moving away from the simpler notions of heat waves, extreme heat events and policy responses such as Heat Action Plans, the research aimed to find out how exactly heat is experienced in informal settlements, which we believe is important for researchers, practitioners as well as decision and policy makers.
This approach led to the development of a few innovative, in-depth, embedded and sustainable methods to measure heat and its impacts. These included developing and stabilizing data streams from at least three distinct but overlapping disciplines: social science, building science and natural science. This blog contains some of data analysis from these streams of information, along with reflections of researchers from the field. We also include some emergent ideas for mitigating heat in informal settlements. We hope you enjoy reading through these pieces.
Do contact us at askhydlab@gmail.com if you have any thoughts and suggestions to share. We will continuously be updating this blog as further analysis emerges from the field. You can scroll down to the data analytics and reflections posts or click a tag in the cloud below to start browsing and searching for themes.
Quick Links
Click these buttons to go to some of the main outputs of the research project, or to know more about the team behind the efforts.
Click here to see the result of the 3-d modeling exercise after measuring up the informal settlement at Singareni Colony, Hyderabad. You will see that the materials of the houses have been reproduced in this model.
Click here to see the model of the government-built housing (VAMBAY Scheme) at Singareni Colony. Please note that this is not the full extent of the government-built housing but only a sample 3 buildings. This is due to technical limitations of hosting large models online.
Click here to see the data dashboard summarizing temperature, humidity, rain, wind and several other parameters, with data from houses and weather stations in Singareni Colony and Bholakpur, Hyderabad.
Click here to view some ideas and suggestions for heat mitigation in buildings in informal settlements. The link leads to an English version, but there is a Telugu version we made for the community as well.
Click here to find out more about the team that has been part of this project.
Blog Posts on the Research Project and its Findings
Click on the tiles below to see learn more about the location and history of Singareni Colony, our respondents and methods, as well as some of the key findings from the research. These post have been authored by various researchers who have been part of the project.
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A typological study of slum settlements in Hyderabad
Exploring the Impact of Housing Quality and Settlement Form Typologies on Heat Vulnerability in the city’s informally built areas Heat and the city’s built environment intersect and interact at different scales. A granular understanding of built-environment conditions of informal settlements is required to inform interventions and policies. Current policy documents including the Hyderabad’s Heat Action…
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Baking Against the Odds: Tale of a Disappearing Bakery in Singareni Colony
Authors: Tanaya Bhowal, Rittu Anilkumar Only a few things are as quintessentially artistic as a wood fire baked puff. The flaky, golden crust and the aromatic richness of these puffs showcase a level of craftsmanship and taste, that beats any machine produced alternatives, without a hitch. In the heart of Singareni Colony, we had found…
hyderabad, informal settlements, informal work, singareni colony, technology transformation, urban heat
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Working in and with the Dalit Women’s Collective – a Design Idea by Students
Our engagement with the site at Singareni Colony would hardly have been possible without the unequivocal support of the Dalit Women’s Collective (DWC), that is embedded in the location. Sujatha Surepally, the Director of DWC, has many dreams for her constituents, and at the same time, for the growth of DWC. For instance, DWC was…
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Modeling Heat Gain Scenarios in an Informal Settlement Using Volumetric, Material-specific Building Information
Abstract and executive summary Data, simulation and analysis around heating in urban areas, especially in the Global South and even more so their informal settlements, is not commensurate with concerns about the same. While remote sensing and simulated heat island effects give us some glimpses into potential heat gains in the broader urban fabric, fine-grained…
3d modeling, Augmented Reality (AR), Building information modeling (BIM), heat gain, housing, informal settlements, simulation, singareni colony
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Measuring Heat and Respondent Perceptions: Instrumentation
Climate change has significantly contributed to intense heat waves in our cities, particularly affecting informal settlements. Hyderabad, one of the hottest cities in India, has witnessed its residents endure severe heat stress, as temperatures often soar to 40°C. Consequently, our project took on to comprehend the heat-related challenges faced by people living in informal settlements.…
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Studying Heat in Informal Settlements: A Note on Methods
The Cool Infrastructures project aims to understand all the ways in which heat plays a role in people’s lives. In particular, the project asks how people who live in informal settlements, whose location on the “grid” is tenuous, deal with, adapt to, and conceive of heat. Questions and Data In order to start answering these…
climate data, heat perception, housing, hyderabad, informal settlements, singareni colony, urban heat
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Understanding Extreme Heat in Informal Settlements: A Teaching Module
Increasing incidence of events of extreme heat – higher temperatures and longerspells of higher temperatures – have been a matter of concern for institutions ofurban governance for the past decade. In India heat is largely understood in terms of disaster management framework. Governmental response has been limited to metropolitan regions and in a more diffused…
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The City that Cannot Sleep: Heat in Low-income Neighbourhoods
People in Singareni Colony – partly an off-grid urban informal settlement and partly a VAMBAY housing colony in south-east Hyderabad – live in houses that feel like blazing ovens. Even getting some quality sleep becomes a far cry in the summer. Sandwiched between different kinds of heat-trapping material and walls of congested houses without ample…
climate data, heat perception, housing, hyderabad, informal settlements, singareni colony, urban heat
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A Spatial History of Singareni Colony, Hyderabad.
Contributors: Rahul Mishra, Goutham Raj Konda, Tanaya Bhowal Walking into Singareni on a warm sunny day, the sight of children playing, women collecting water from the water tanker, streets filled with spilt water from the water tanker, haphazardly hanging electric wires, some parked two wheelers, clothes hanging outside for drying are just come scenes which…
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Building Context for Our Research in Singareni: Who Are Our Respondents?
An integral component of conducting an urban heat study involved comprehending the heat perception of residents, their coping mechanisms, the actions they take, and how they adapt to extreme climate conditions. In the context of the project, the research team implemented the Time and Activity Perception survey in Singareni Colony, Hyderabad, commencing toward the end…
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The Great Indian Kitchen: Narratives Around Cooking in Heat in Singareni Colony
Contributor: Anushree Gupta What is your idea of a conventional kitchen? The kitchen is an important aspect of every household. It makes a house complete. For me, I picture it as a place where the aroma of home-cooked meals blends with a homemaker’s effort to put the food on the table. A fairly small but…
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The ‘Everyday Social Life’ of an Off-grid Basti
From engaging in everyday banters while sitting under a tree, to taking important life decisions while chatting at a tea-stall, social interactions with friends, neighbours, and relatives, form an important part of the everyday lives in Singareni Colony. Some kinds of socialising activities are related to conducting and attending life events and social events, while…
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A Few Suggestions on Building for Heat Mitigation in Informal Settlements
Informal settlements are an unavoidable (for the moment) part of urbanization in India and Global South. When building houses in such settlements, people are often constrained to various degrees by various factors. Land tenure, financial resources and emic knowledge, all play a part in the decision-making around the physicality of the constructed house. Can we,…
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Data Dashboard – Climatic Data from 2 Locations in Hyderabad
Contributors and workers: Abhijit Trimukhe, Chandbhai, Almas, Siraj and Swastik Harish One of the critical gaps in our understanding of heat and its impacts on people in informal settlements is simply the lack of data on temperature, humidity and other climatic parameters in such places. Weather data is typically restricted to government weather stations that…
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3d modeling (1) Augmented Reality (AR) (1) Building information modeling (BIM) (1) climate data (4) design (1) dwc (1) gender (1) heat gain (2) heat perception (7) housing (6) hyderabad (10) informal settlements (11) informal work (1) instruments (1) simulation (1) singareni colony (12) spatial history (1) technology transformation (1) thermal comfort (2) urban heat (9)