This column is a fortnightly reminder that there is fascinating research taking place around us. Nidhi Singh researches the impact of climate change on humans. NOT human impact on the climate, but the other way round. “We know that climatic parameters play an important role in the spread and transport of diseases such as tuberculosis, diarrhoea, malaria, black fever, and pneumonia. Similarly, a person having cardiac issues can get troubled in high temperatures like 48-50° C. Heat stress is another problem due to loss of water and dehydration in extreme temperatures,” she says.
A new breed
Nidhi is a climate change scientist — a relatively new breed of scientists who work with statistical climate models that predict future climatic conditions based on data from the past. These models provide specific information on different climatic parameters such as temperature and humidity in three scenarios for the future, depending on how climate change mitigation is handled: low, medium and high warming. Climate change scientists might work with an additional dataset to match against the climate models. Nidhi is looking specifically at how climate change in Varanasi, the oldest city in India, will affect the health of its residents.
Data
Nidhi’s research needs two kinds of data: health and climate. Though the climate data is available as models that are widely used, the health data has to be collected from local hospitals in Varanasi. Every year, the hospitals treats thousands of patients suffering from TB, diabetes, diarrhoea, malaria, and black fever or kala-azar. The large patient data generated is invaluable for Nidhi’s work. Other than the hospitals’ official records, she also needs additional survey data directly from patients that needs to be followed up for three years. Once she has all the data, she can correlate the numbers of patients with a particular disease with the climatic conditions. Her goal is to find relationships in the datasets to generate a generalised result of the impact of climate change on the health of Varanasi residents.
Nidhi’s motivation comes from the love of science combined with the love for her home town Varanasi — or Benaras as it has been called for centuries. “Once we have good research based on specific data, local communities can take seasonal mitigative steps like widening sewers and directing the flow of water. Policies and plans the government makes are based on the data that scientists have done research on. So, unless and until we have knowledge on particular areas it would be tough to deal with problems locally,” she said.
Nidhi is a true Benarsi. She was born here, grew up here, and plans to go nowhere — maybe she will do a stint abroad if Benaras Hindu University (BHU) doesn’t offer her a lectureship when her research is complete. She pursued her B.Sc and M.Sc at BHU, and in 2013 joined an integrated M.Phil course that would lead her into her PhD at the Institute of Environment and Sustainable Development at BHU.
The author is a science writer and co-founder of the Life of Science project. To know more about women scientists of India and their research, visit www.thelifeofscience.com
