Climate change impact and vulnerability assessment of Mumbai city, India

Climate change (CC) is one of the most challenging problems of today which need to be understood. CC impact studies at the urban centres are the need of the hour. Mumbai is one of the most vulnerable port cities in the world and one of the most densely populated cities in the world. The city is vulnerable to CC-induced hazards, including sea-level rise, storm surge, flooding, and coastal erosion. In this study, it is tried to do the spatial integration of vulnerability from these hazards to portray the overall CC-induced impacts in Mumbai city. This study portraits the overall vulnerability of the Mumbai megacity, considering SLR, long-term coastal erosion, and flooding. This integrated vulnerability assessment reveals that 123.35 km 2 (24%) of the Mumbai regions is demarcated as composite vulnerable regions. They are mostly around the coastal tracts. Within the vulnerable regions, inland flood-affected areas from the past floods area are 37.13 km 2 , which is around 30% of the demarcated most vulnerable regions. Remaining vulnerable areas are falling in built up, barren, forest, vegetation, and mangrove regions. The most worrying impact would be in the 44 km 2 of the built-up areas, which is around 35% of the vulnerable regions. It pulls the city to one of the most vulnerable cities of the world due to the exposure of the higher population. Rest of all the classes can cope up as they are naturally covered, not covered, and the human population is not residing over those regions currently. Since the city is expanding rapidly, other LULC classes apart from built-up land have to be converted based on the need. Available barren land can be kept for rehabilitation in the future. This study provides vital information about the CC-induced vulnerability of Mumbai city.