Published Sep 08, 2026 | 3:10 PM ⚊ Updated Sep 08, 2026 | 7:36 PM
Ahmedabad
Synopsis: Cities were scored on exposure to inland and coastal flooding, heat stress, drought, wildfire, and hurricane winds, then measured against how much they had invested in countering those threats in the form of early warning systems, governance, and infrastructure such as drainage networks and flood barriers.
Ahmedabad has tied with Hyderabad, Pakistan, and is classified as the least climate-resilient major city in a new global ranking of how well major cities can withstand climate disasters.
The geospatial risk analytics firm AlphaGeo evaluated 72 of the world’s largest cities on a simple formula: resilience equals risk minus adaptation.
The report separates raw physical exposure from resilience-adjusted risk (RAJ) — what we call the adaptation delta — to reveal which cities are genuinely protected and which face a dangerous gap between their risk profile and their adaptive capacity.
Cities were scored on exposure to inland and coastal flooding, heat stress, drought, wildfire, and hurricane winds, then measured against how much they had invested in countering those threats in the form of early warning systems, governance, and infrastructure such as drainage networks and flood barriers.
Full city list (Source: https://alphageo.ai/)
India’s Ahmedabad ranked worst overall, followed by Pakistan’s Hyderabad and Multan, Bangladesh’s Dhaka, Pakistan’s Lahore, and India’s Kolkata. Apart from these six least-climate-resilient cities, other Indian cities included are Bengaluru as the 12th least climate-resilient, Chennai as the 15th least climate-resilient, Delhi the 22nd least climate-resilient and Mumbai as the 45th least climate-resilient.
The report flags all these cities for high exposure to flooding and monsoon extremes combined with inadequate adaptation measures.
By contrast, Chicago topped the list as the most resilient city globally, aided by a temperate climate and decades of investment in flood-mitigation infrastructure, including its large-scale underground tunnel and reservoir system.
AlphaGeo’s founder noted that resilience is rarely measured in practice, even though it is widely discussed. The report aims to close this gap by quantifying how prepared, or unprepared, cities really are.
Also Read: Telangana SIR: ECI revises schedule, extends final publication deadline to November 9
(Note: An earlier version of this article erroneously identified Hyderabad, Pakistan, as Hyderabad, India. The error is regretted.)
