Rural cooling needs assessment towards designing community cooling hubs: case studies from Maharashtra, India

Kumar Biswajit Debnath, Xinfang Wang, Toby Peters, Sanskriti Menon, Satish Awate, Gaurang Patwardhan, Navneet Wadkar, Mahesh Patankar, Priyanka Shendage

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Abstract

In a rapidly warming world, sustainable cooling is directly related to the protection of fresh and nutritious food, medicines, and the population from extreme heat for work conditions, the economic productivity of the working population, and income generation. This study aimed to understand how rural communities are meeting their nutrition, livelihood, health, living space, and mobility requirements regarding the role of cooling. We selected three villages as case studies in Maharashtra, India and conducted household surveys, in-depth interviews of key informants, focus group discussions (FGDs), and social mapping building typology study. The objective was to assess the rural community cooling to propose a community cooling hub (CCH) framework that could be economically, environmentally, and socially sustainable for the three villages. Our study showed that agriculture, dairy, buildings (domestic and commercial), and healthcare require cooling intervention in the studied communities. Based on the needs assessment for cooling, we proposed a CCH framework to provide cooling solutions in an integrated system for rural contexts.
Original languageEnglish
Article number5595
Number of pages19
JournalSustainability
Volume13
Issue number10
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 17 May 2021

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
Funding: This research was funded by Shakti Sustainable Energy Foundation, grant number G19 SSEF 436.

Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.

Keywords

  • Community cooling hub
  • Cooling needs assessment
  • India
  • Rural community

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Geography, Planning and Development
  • Renewable Energy, Sustainability and the Environment
  • Environmental Science (miscellaneous)
  • Energy Engineering and Power Technology
  • Management, Monitoring, Policy and Law

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