District-Level Estimates of Heatwave-Induced Excess Mortality in India

Piyush Narang's dataset provides district-level estimates of heatwave-induced excess mortality across India. It estimates approximately 3,400 excess deaths nationally from a single day of extreme heat and nearly 30,000 from a five-day heatwave. The data was created using a climate zone-based risk transfer methodology and was last updated in May 2026.

Use Cases

• Mapping high-risk districts for heat-related mortality based on the provided district-level estimates.
• Prioritizing resource allocation for heat action plans based on estimated excess death figures for states like Uttar Pradesh.
• Calibrating early-warning systems using the modeled relationship between heatwaves and mortality risk.
• Comparing heat vulnerability across different Köppen–Geiger climate zones within India.

Strengths

• Provides district-level estimates for all of India, a granularity not previously reported in peer-reviewed literature.
• Includes specific numerical estimates, such as 8,100 excess deaths for Uttar Pradesh during a five-day heatwave.
• Uses a defined methodology integrating Civil Registration System mortality data and climate classification.
• Released under a permissive CC-BY-4.0 license for reuse.

Limitations

• Description metadata is limited; actual data quality and column definitions require manual inspection after download.
• The author notes estimates are conservative lower bounds and that applying urban-derived risk coefficients to rural populations introduces uncertain bias.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment for some analyses.

Provenance

Source

Piyush Narang via figshare.

Collection Method

Estimates derived using a climate zone-based risk transfer methodology, adapting multi-city epidemiological analysis to district-level CRS mortality data and population projections.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-05-26 06:02:04; freshness should be verified.

Geography

India, at the district level.