New Delhi
December 15, 2025
In a significant development for India's urban environmental services, C-DAC Pune launched the Integrated Urban Modelingand Simulation Platform - Urban Environment Science to Society (UES2S) at the Ministry of Earth Sciences (MoES), New Delhi on December 15th, 2025. The advanced platform enables high-resolution forecasting of urban weather, floods, and air quality, marking a major step forward in strengthening urban resilience through precise, city-scale environmental prediction.
The system was jointly launched by Dr. M. Ravichandran, Secretary, Ministry of Earth Sciences (MoES), and Shri S. Krishnan, Secretary, Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), highlighting strong inter-ministerial cooperation for deploying advanced scientific systems for urban resilience and public safety.
The launch event was attended by senior officials from IMD, MeitY, and C-DAC, including DGM Dr. Mrutyunjay Mohapatra, Dr. V. K. Soni, Dr. A. K. Das, Dr. Raghu Nadimpalli, Dr. Anikender Kumar (IMD); Dr. D.S. Pai, Dr. Akhilesh Mishra (MoES); Ms. Sunita Verma, Shri Naveen Kumar, ShriPiyush Kumar, ShriSaurabh Mishra (MeitY); Dr. Akshara K (Atria Univ); and from C-DAC -Dr. Manoj Khare, ShriNeelesh Kharkar, ShriSahidul Islam, ShriAtul Joshi, Dr. Sumita Kedia, Dr. Santosh Kulkarni, and Dr. Palash Sinha.
During the launch, the project team provided a detailed demonstration of the UES2S application, showcasing its core modeling capabilities, decision support system features, and operational workflows.
Developed by the HPC-ESEG Group, C-DAC Pune, under the National Supercomputing Mission (NSM), in close collaboration with IMD, IITM Pune, IIT Bhubaneswar, and IISc Bangalore, UES2S is now ready for operational deployment across Indian urban centres to support science-based planning and decision-making.IMD extended full support for implementing UES2S across all Meteorological Centres (MCs) and Regional Meteorological Centres (RMCs), ensuring effective operational usage and continued system evolution.
How Does UES2S Address India's Urban Environmental Challenges?
With the rapid pace of urbanization, Indian cities are becoming increasingly vulnerable to extreme rainfall, urban flooding, heatwaves, and deteriorating air quality. These growing challenges emphasize the urgent need for accurate forecasting, region-specific knowledge with localized insights, and timely decision support to safeguard communities and ensure a sustainable urban environment.
UES2S addresses these needs through an HPC-based, automated, and fully coupled urban modeling framework, integrating meteorology, hydrology, and air quality. UES2S is a high-resolution, multi-model platform designed for Indian cities, capable of capturing city-ward level rainfall patterns, flood depth and spread, urban heat stress, and pollution dispersion. These capabilities enable authorities to issue timely advisories and take proactive measures for risk reduction.
The UES2S ecosystem is built on three core platforms:
- Data Hub - A secure, centralized repository providing access to curated scientific datasets.
- Science Gateway - Enables researchers, operational agencies, and students to execute city-scale simulations on NSM supercomputers, run various analytics, validate outputs with observations, and visualize results.
- Decision Support System (DSS) - A GIS-based interface that transforms complex model outputs into clear, actionable information for planners and disaster management authorities—truly bringing Science to Society.
The DSS allows users to visualize weather, air quality, and flood forecasts through an intuitive GIS interface. Users can overlay multiple layers, access point-based forecasts and observations, examine environmental indices, and compare up to four parameters simultaneously—supporting faster, clearer, and more informed decisions during critical events.
The UES2S system was developed with support from NSM resources, including the PARAM Smriti and Utkarsh HPC systems, alongside Indian language localization by the Multilingual Technologies Group (MTG), C-DAC Pune, and contributions from Media & Communication Group and ISS team at C-DAC Pune.
