Urban Heat Islands in Pune: How Tree Cover Loss Is Changing the City’s Climate 

By Radhika Sharma
Pune, 12th May 2026: For decades, Pune was known for its relatively moderate climate, tree-lined roads, open hills, and cooler evenings compared to other rapidly urbanising Indian metros. But across the city today, from Senapati Bapat Road to the glass-and-concrete clusters of Hinjawadi and Kharadi, residents increasingly describe a different Pune: hotter afternoons, warmer nights, disappearing shade, and neighbourhoods that trap heat long after sunset.

Experts say this transformation is closely tied to shrinking tree cover, unchecked concretisation, and planning models that prioritise infrastructure and real estate over ecological balance.

At the centre of this is the Urban Heat Island (UHI) effect, where built-up urban areas record significantly higher temperatures than surrounding regions because materials like concrete, asphalt, and glass absorb and retain heat during the day before releasing it slowly at night.

Dr Gurudas Nulkar, Associate Professor at the Centre for Sustainable Development at Gokhale Institute of Politics and Economics, explained that “Urban Heat Islands are the creation of pockets of landmass having increased temperatures than that surrounding it.”

According to Dr Nulkar, Pune’s changing urban form has accelerated this over the past few decades. “A major factor in this is road widening. About four decades ago, on streets like S.B. Road, there were a lot of trees. Now, owing to road widening, none of that exists anymore,” he said.

The loss is measurable. A technical note by the World Resources Institute India found that Pune lost nearly 620 hectares of tree cover between 2016–17 and 2019–20 within Pune Municipal Corporation limits, while built-up area increased by over 839 hectares during the same period.

A 2025 study on Pune’s urban heat dynamics also found that urbanisation within PMC limits rose from 44.8% in 2012 to 55.17% in 2022, with heat island intensities ranging between 2°C and 8°C across multiple parts of the city.

For long-time residents, the transformation feels deeply personal.
Kaivan Bodhanwala, a 70-year-old retired resident who has lived in Pune for over five decades, recalled how different the city once felt. “When I came to Pune, to have a look at the university campus, the first thing that came to my notice was the absence of fans,” he said, referring to the city’s once mild weather.

Today, he says, the effects of rising temperatures are impossible to ignore. Bodhanwala, who feeds stray dogs in his locality every day, said, “The heat has heavily affected animal life, not only them, but the construction workers working outdoors in the scorching heat is concerning. We never think of what they have endured during the day.”

“The way people are cutting down trees is truly saddening,” he added. “No one realises they are an integral part of our survival.”

For residents, the effects are visible not only in rising temperatures but also in daily life itself.

“Blackbox evenings are becoming common,” Dr Nulkar said. “Road-building materials absorb heat through the day and release that absorbed heat in the night and evening, leading to no relief from these temperatures even at sundown.”

He added that Pune’s vertical growth pattern has worsened the issue by reducing open spaces and soft land.

Urban planners argue that greenery is still treated as decorative rather than foundational to planning.

Dr Swati Sahastrabudhe, Professor at the Department of Landscape Architecture at Dr Bhanuben Nanavati College of Architecture for Women (BNCA), said, “Establishing a healthy balance between Green Infrastructure and Built Mass, that is, Landscape Urbanism, needs to be perceived as the backbone of urban planning, not as an afterthought.”

According to Dr Sahastrabudhe, Pune’s older peth areas still retain higher liveability because of shaded streets and accessible spaces, while newer commercially developed areas and gated communities often lack open parks and public green cover.

“We need to adapt to the ‘economy with ecology’ principle, not the currently employed ‘economy versus ecology’ principle,” she said.

Dr Sahastrabudhe believes zoning laws can still be redesigned creatively. “In areas like bus depots, buses can be parked in a basement while the upper land can be used to plant native trees,” she suggested.

Jyoti Amale, who has lived in Pune for nearly 39 years, said the city’s environmental decline has been visible over decades. “80% of whatever greenery we had is completely gone,” she said. “Poona has never witnessed such heat.”

Recalling Pune’s older climate patterns, Amale said, “In the early years, the weather was extremely regulated; it rained heavily when it was supposed to, and the heat and cold came in their own time.”

She added that the impact is increasingly visible on ordinary citizens. “Electricity bills are soaring, but people who work outdoors suffer daily, some even risking fatal heat strokes.”

Amale also pointed out that tree cover loss is only one part of the larger problem. “People opting for individual vehicles, disregarding public transport, causes pollution, adding to the issue,” she said.

“Old Pune was lush with greenery,” she added. “Now, the older parts and the newer parts, there is no legible difference apart from the infrastructure. The temperatures, the condition of the streets and the severity of traffic are the same all across.”

Meteorological experts say reliable heat mapping in Indian cities remains limited.

Dr Anupam Kashyapi, former Head Weather Forecaster and Crop Advisor at the India Meteorological Department (IMD), explained that accurate heat measurement depends heavily on standardised sensor placement.
“According to WHO guidelines, the sensor needs to be placed about 1.3 metres above the ground, in an area with no tree shadow,” he said.

The same 2025 Pune heat study found increasing temperature trends in rapidly urbanising areas such as Chinchwad, Magarpatta, Pashan, and Shivajinagar, linking them to expanding built-up areas and declining vegetation cover.

Environmental activist Dr Sushma Date believes governance failures are equally responsible. “Development that doesn’t factor in sustainability is a flawed model of development,” she said. “We are hyperfocused on rapid growth.”

Dr Date pointed to construction near riverbeds, intensive infrastructure projects, and indiscriminate concretisation as examples of ecological imbalance.

“There is no official baseline data for tree cover, no mitigation, and certainly no plan in the works for sustainable urban planning,” she said.
Studies have also raised concerns about inconsistencies in existing tree census data, making it difficult to accurately track canopy loss or verify compensatory plantation claims.

Dr Date argued that compensatory afforestation often fails to benefit cities directly. “Plantation may happen in the outskirts, but the urban area losing trees gets no actual relief,” she said.

Experts warn that the consequences go beyond heat alone. Tree loss and excessive concretisation affect biodiversity, soil health, water absorption, and urban flooding risks while reducing the city’s natural cooling capacity.
Research cited in the Pune heat study notes that maintaining at least 16% tree cover can help reduce urban temperatures by around 1°C.

For Pune, experts say the challenge is no longer simply planting more trees but rethinking how the city develops.

“Public transportation needs to be improved. Discouraging people from bringing individual vehicles will reduce the need for road widening. It is the simple principle of induced demand, really,” Dr Date said.

Dr Nulkar warned that Pune is rapidly losing its remaining “soft land” to tar and concrete, while Dr Kashyapi noted that even the Mula-Mutha river system can now offer only limited climatic relief due to its degraded condition.

“Authorities have been apathetic at best,” Dr Date said. “The city, we can say, is being designed for and by builders and real estate organisations.”

The result is increasingly visible every summer, not only in temperature records and satellite studies, but in everyday urban life itself: scorching bus stops without shade, neighbourhoods that remain warm deep into the night, and a city once known for its climate slowly losing the environmental balance that defined it.