Surat - 100 Resilient Cities

Surat’s Resilience Journey

The city of Surat released its Resilience Strategy on April 17, 2017. Explore the strategy here.

Surat’s Resilience Story

Surat is one of the fastest growing cities in the world, experiencing rapid industrialization and migration. According to World Bank Sustainable Development Network, it’s also one of the world’s most climate change affected cities. In the past 100 years, Surat has experienced 23 floods, including a significant one in 2013, and an outbreak of the plague in 1994. The city’s most pressing urban resilience priorities are: learning lessons from past events; building community and social resilience for early response to floods; preventing vector-borne diseases; and improving nutrition, water management and the electric grid.

SHOCKS AND STRESSES

Aging Infrastructure
Disease Outbreak
Drought
Earthquake
Sea Level Rise / Coastal Erosion

Meet The Chief Resilience Officer

Kamlesh Yagnik has over three decades of experience in business and consulting. He represented micro, small, medium, and large enterprises working in flood-prone areas of South Gujarat, India as President of The Southern Gujarat Chamber of Commerce and Industry. An Energy Engineer by training from India’s leading technological institute, IIT, Mumbai, he leads two companies as Director, working in the areas of energy, climate change and information technology.

He is a Founder Trustee of Surat Climate Change Trust, the first of its kind in India. He has studied vulnerabilities, impact and adaptation strategies for climate change in Surat. In collaboration with local government, he has worked on an end-to-end early-warning system for river floods. He has also initiated various e-governance projects for city administration and police department. His areas of interest include citywide surveillance, e-Governance and energy management. He has actively contributed in making Surat Solar City Plan of Surat Municipal Corporation.