Mapping the Risks of Climate Change in Developing Countries

Mark R. Montgomery, Population Council
Deborah L. Balk, Baruch College, City University of New York (CUNY)
Gordon McGranahan, International Institute for Environment and Development
S. Chandrasekhar, Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research
Christopher Small, Columbia University
Valentina Mara, Columbia University
Donghwan Kim, Stony Brook University, State University of New York (SUNY)

This paper examines the climate-related risks that will face the urban populations of developing countries in the decades to come. We base our study on a new and comprehensive database that draws upon city size and growth data for several thousand cities in the developing world and which, for the first time, situates these data spatially, making use of the highly detailed geographic information on both urban and rural populations that has been assembled in the Global Rural-Urban Mapping Project. These data are joined to spatially coded time series on weather-related and other disasters as well as to spatially-specific information on temperature. To show what is involved in connecting global models and data such as ours to country-specific and local-level needs, we carry out a case study of India, whose cities are likely to face mounting risks from storm surges, flooding and episodes of extreme heat.