Despite the rising importance of both systemic and multi-risks caused by interrelated natural hazards (e.g., compound, cascading, consecutive), there is still an apparent lack of unifying frameworks that allow for harmonized assessment and management of these risks. This paper presents a six-step framework developed as part of the HORIZON 2020 MYRIAD-EU project, with the framework flexible enough to cover single, multi- and systemic risk analysis, including measurement, modelling and management dimensions. The six steps are: i) finding a system’s definition, ii) characterization of direct risk, iii) characterization of indirect risk, iv) evaluation of direct and indirect risk, v) defining risk management options, and vi) accounting for future systems state. The framework is developed based on systemic risk ideas, drawing a need to delineate clear system boundaries and identify interdependencies of system elements, ultimately enabling system of systems approach that can incorporate complexities in a manageable level for a diverse set of risk bearers. As done traditionally, in the process of risk assessment, we first propose an assessment of direct risks, emerging due to direct contact of system elements with a hazard(s). However, we suggest to move forward and then focus on indirect risks emerging due to interdependencies in the system and in response to direct risk realization, especially within a co-produced selection of indirect risk metrics with relevant stakeholders. Risk management options, including indirect risk management, are then considered, with a special emphasis on synergies and asynergies of risk management options between hazards, sectors, and impact types and between top down and bottom-up related risk management instruments. While the paper is focused on a detailed presentation and discussion of the conceptual framework, given that the framework is currently applied in five pilots across Europe (Danube, Canary Islands, Scandinavia, North Sea, and Veneto Region), it also brings initial results from practical implementation, including initial tools and methods, challenges, and opportunities.

How to cite: Sakic Trogrlic, R., Hochrainer-Stigler, S., and Reiter, K.: A Framework for Multi- and Systemic-Risk Analysis: Focusing on Indirect Risks Based on Dependencies, EGU General Assembly 2023, Vienna, Austria, 23–28 Apr 2023, EGU23-8792, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu23-8792, 2023.

In this nation-wide study, the indirect effects of hydro-geological phenomena on Italian firms are assessed by coupling some indicators of the performance of Italian firms, and a dataset of flood and landslide events.

Econometric indicators were defined starting from data provided by organizations such as INPS, ISTAT, CERVED, Tax Registry and Bank of Italy. A geodatabase providing the timing and location of harmful hydro-geological events was compiled by an automated web datamining procedure based on a semantic algorithm scanning internet news. These datasets, with a spatial detail at the municipality level, cover the period from 2010 to 2020 and a statistical analysis was carried out to assess to which extent hydro-geological disasters affected the competitiveness of local economies.

The results showed that firms located in municipalities hit by a relevant event face on average a 4.8% increase in the probability of exiting the market with respect to non-impaired firms. Moreover, surviving firms seem to be slightly affected by natural disasters, in particular on the revenue side (-3.5%) and, to a lesser extent, on employment (-1.7%). We also explored the heterogeneity of these effects, discovering that indirect impacts seem more relevant for micro and small businesses, for those active in services and those located in rural and suburban areas.

How to cite: Clò, S. and Segoni, S.: Assessing the indirect impacts of hydro-geological hazards on Italian firms: a nation-wide assessment, EGU General Assembly 2023, Vienna, Austria, 23–28 Apr 2023, EGU23-5964, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu23-5964, 2023.

Weather-related events were responsible for nearly 95 per cent of all disaster displacement recorded over the last decade. An average of 21.5 million internal displacements were triggered per year by weather related hazards. Although displacement can be a “short-term” pre-emptive evacuation measure that effectively prevent injuries or loss of lives, people whose home or livelihoods are destroyed or threatened might be forced into medium to long-term displacement.

Risk assessment for displacement could help inform anticipatory action that protects people from the harmful impacts of being displaced. Past studies used CLIMADA (CLIMate ADAptation), an open-source probabilistic natural catastrophe risk assessment platform, to estimate the displacement risk in future for weather related hazards taking in account climate change variation in intensity and frequency and population growth. The platform also enables the implementation of impact forecasting for displacement for impending tropical cyclone events, with the possibility to transfer the implementation to other hazards and impact types.

However, displacement is much more complex and context-dependent. The modelling assumptions may not be able to represent all the drivers and complex processes of displacement. From our modelling experience we will shed some light on the potential of probabilistic risk assessment for displacement, and the importance of uncertainty and sensitivity analysis that quantify the confidence of model outputs. We will identify and discuss the current scientific gaps of displacement risk modelling, and the way forward to support decision making process in mitigating displacement risk.

How to cite: Kam, P. M., Ponserre, S., Kropf, C. M., and Bresch, D. N.: Risk modelling for human displacement: what we’ve learnt and what’s next?, EGU General Assembly 2023, Vienna, Austria, 23–28 Apr 2023, EGU23-13206, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu23-13206, 2023.

Environmental assets are critical to human well-being, ecosystem vitality and the equilibrium of natural processes. Despite their recognized importance in providing numerous ecosystem services, their value remains essentially intangible and difficult to monetize. For this reason, environmental assets are rarely included in flood exposure and impact assessments, despite being required by Directive 60/2006/EC. A common thinking is that floods are a natural phenomenon and as such they should not be detrimental for environmental assets. However, the literature identifies impacts on fish fauna, habitats, tree survival and plant reproduction. This work has the objectives of (i) identifying which environmental assets are to be included in the exposure analysis, (ii) analysing the environmental value based on objective parameters and based on the social value recognized by a group of users to whom an online test is administered. The developed methodology is based on three levels with increasing of detail (from regional/national to local analysis). In the first level, exposed environmental areas are evaluated based on the level of regulatory constraint. In the second, environmental areas are assigned their main ecosystem services, and in the third, the ecosystem service subcategory is further detailed. The level 1 and 2 methods are applied to the entire Tuscany Region (Italy) for low hydraulic hazard areas mapped by the Hydrographic District of the Northern Apennine, the level 3 methodology is applied to the Val d'Orcia and Val di Chiana catchments. The results particularly highlight at the regional level the exposure of wetlands of recognized international value, lakes and all water resources that provide numerous ecosystem services for supply and regulation, and UNESCO-recognized cultural landscapes.

How to cite: Caporali, E., Bertoli, G., and Arrighi, C.: Valuing environmental assets for flood exposure assessment, EGU General Assembly 2023, Vienna, Austria, 23–28 Apr 2023, EGU23-15442, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu23-15442, 2023.

In this study, we compile and review the required and available data to do a global-scale urban vulnerability assessment for different hazards. Over the past decades, cities around the globe have rapidly increased in size. A larger concentration of people, assets, and economic activities in cities also mean that more elements are potentially located directly in harm’s way if a hazard occurs. The impacts of natural hazards are often expressed within the disaster risk framework, which describes disaster risk as a probabilistic function of hazard (i.e. the natural hazard event that potentially causes harm), exposure (i.e. those elements that are potentially in harm’s way), and vulnerability (i.e. the characteristics of the exposed elements that make them more or less susceptible to harm). Thus far, urban vulnerability has been investigated primarily on the local scale and is often led by data availability rather than suitability. To enable a more informed decision making process in vulnerability assessments, we aim to provide an overview of both relevant and available vulnerability indicators for six different hazards (pluvial flooding, coastal flooding, drought, earthquakes, heatwaves, and waterborne diseases). Our methodology is threefold: (1) An exhaustive overview of relevant urban vulnerability characteristics through a semi-systematic review of the peer-reviewed scientific literature (3000+ papers). Our focus is on empirically derived vulnerability characteristics, but we supplement this with information from modelled, theorized, adopted, or unknown derived sources. (2) An overview of available urban vulnerability indicators from supra-national urban datasets in a data review (100+ datasets). (3) A comparison of the relevant vulnerability information from the literature review with the available vulnerability data from the data review in order to explore what data acquisition activities are most needed in the context of urban vulnerability assessments. Lastly, we also discuss the outlook of a temporally dynamic (i.e. with values for different moments in time) vulnerability dataset with full global coverage in the urban context. The results can be used to inform researchers and urban decision makers tasked with disaster risk reduction on viable vulnerability indicators.

How to cite: Stolte, T., Koks, E., de Moel, H., Reimann, L., de Ruiter, M., van Vliet, J., and Ward, P.: Urban Vulnerability: Requirements and Data Availability on the Global Scale, EGU General Assembly 2023, Vienna, Austria, 23–28 Apr 2023, EGU23-319, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu23-319, 2023.

Global flood risk maps combine data from hydrodynamic models with gridded population or GDP data to estimate the amount of people or wealth likely to be exposed to future flood events. These estimates rarely incorporate measures of social vulnerability, which is a key source of variation in outcomes for exposed populations. They also use arbitrary return period thresholds, which can disguise potentially catastrophic hazards. To address these limitations, we integrate annual average exceedance probability estimates from a high-resolution (~90m) flood model with gridded population and economic data to create a global vulnerability-adjusted risk index for flooding (VARI Flood). This human welfare-centred approach radically alters how we perceive the geography of risk and could be used as a complement to traditional population or asset-centred approaches. We present global results for both unadjusted and vulnerability-adjusted risk at the subnational (Admin 2) level; country case studies illustrate how accounting for vulnerability changes the perceived subnational geography of risk. Globally, adjusting for vulnerability significantly reduces the total number of people estimated to be at ‘high risk’ from  over 575 million to about 117 million. However, this latter estimate is likely an underestimate given the relatively coarse resolution of the economic data available, which disguises variation in vulnerability between communities within large cities and urban regions. Given the increasing concentration of the global human population in cities, there is an urgent need to improve the resolution of vulnerability mapping within large human settlements to inform mitigation measures. 

How to cite: Fox, S., Agyemang, F., Hawker, L., and Neal, J.: A vulnerability-adjusted approach to global flood risk mapping, EGU General Assembly 2023, Vienna, Austria, 23–28 Apr 2023, EGU23-3570, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu23-3570, 2023.

Floods are one of many climate change extremes causing massive economic and non-economic losses and damages. The recent 6^th Assessment Report of the IPCC highlights that flooding will be more widespread at 2°C compared to 1.5°C and even more pronounced at higher levels of global warming. To prevent or reduce impacts from flooding, structural measures for flood protection through hard infrastructure are the most common intervention, as they directly manage flood hazards by controlling flow through streams and prevent water overflow. Adaptation options specifically include dikes, flood control gates, weirs, dams, storage and proper waste management.

While flood protection could substantially reduce the economic costs of flood events and counts as the most effective adaptation strategy in the water sector to climate change, scenarios for future flood protection are still in their infancy. Consequently, quantitative assessments of climate change (i.e., impact models), which themselves include numerous uncertainties, cannot adequately account for adaptative flood protection in current risk assessments. We propose a Flood Protection Index (FPI) that captures the current level of flood protection across the globe using various data sources. By identifying adaptation-relevant quantitative socioeconomic variables within the framework of the Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSPs) and accounting for future climatic risk, we will be able to project five scenarios for flood protection alongside the SSPs. For the first time, we will show how different socioeconomic trajectories could modulate future flood impacts. These scenarios can be included in quantitative assessments of climate change and improve risk assessments in the 21^st century.

How to cite: van Maanen, N., Möller, T., Lissner, T., Schleussner, C.-F., and Lall, U.: Scenarios for adaptive flood protection alongside the SSPs for improved climate risk assessment, EGU General Assembly 2023, Vienna, Austria, 23–28 Apr 2023, EGU23-15593, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu23-15593, 2023.

Social vulnerability is a key concept that guides the design, evaluation, and targeting of humanitarian and development programs worldwide. However, vulnerability remains an abstract concept, and many methodologies and assessment tools exist to characterize vulnerability. What is missing is a standardized framework to determine which method is most useful to assess social vulnerability and to determine the sensitivity of different methodologies.

In this paper, we make a headway in addressing this gap by comparing two methods for assessing social vulnerability and their sensitivity in a case study for Burkina Faso: 1) the inductive principal component approach (SoVI) and 2) the hierarchical equal weighting approach (INFORM).  Our hypothesis is that the spatio-temporal characterization of social vulnerability is highly sensitive to different methods and the quality of the input data.

To test the impact of the different methods, this paper presents a case study of Burkina Faso. Burkina Faso, is one of the most vulnerable countries in the world ranking 161^th on the ND-Gain Index, highly vulnerable to natural hazards and man-made disasters. While many vulnerability assessment methods focus on natural hazards, our case study assesses a combination of conflicts and floods by calculating the social vulnerability for all 351 communes of Burkina Faso. Given the limited availability of data with high spatial and temporal resolution, we rely on a variety of data from mostly open global data repositories. We focus on characterizing the spatial characteristics for one year (2020).

Our results show a considerable difference in the spatial social vulnerability rankings of communes for the different methods. The hierarchical approach shows a larger standard deviation within the social vulnerability scores, and at least 50% of the communes have a rank differentiation of 50 positions compared to the inductive approach.

When comparing the performance of the methods with the challenges present in the quantification of social vulnerability, we argue that equal weighting approaches perform better in data scare areas. However, the inductive approach provides better insights in temporal dynamics and the relations between different indicators that are represented by the index.  

The substantial differences in outcomes of the methods, implies that different methodologies may lead to different policy decisions in humanitarian and development programs. It is therefore crucial to better understand the methodological differences and to understand which methodologies can quantify social vulnerability both spatially and temporally when facing a lack of high-quality data. This study is a call for action to be very careful in relying entirely on one method and the need to develop a deeper understanding of the different methods available and which characteristics are required to satisfy the needs of humanitarian and development programs.

How to cite: Savelberg, L., van den Homberg, M., Zatarain Salazar, J., Casali, Y., and Comes, T.: Comparing hierarchical and inductive methods to characterize social vulnerability. – A Burkina Faso  case study, EGU General Assembly 2023, Vienna, Austria, 23–28 Apr 2023, EGU23-12544, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu23-12544, 2023.

How to cite: Marr, P., Glade, T., Donato, A. J., Gspan, K., Preissler, A., Adams, M., Pittore, M., Cocuccioni, S., and Hürlimann, M.: The European alpine transport corridor – investigating the systemic impact of compounding disasters within the PARATUS project, EGU General Assembly 2023, Vienna, Austria, 23–28 Apr 2023, EGU23-9978, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu23-9978, 2023.

Critical facilities are crucial buildings for the community and in case of natural hazards their functionality must be guaranteed. Specific building codes and up-to date studies are commonly available for facing earthquakes, but it is not the same for other natural hazards, such as floods. The older facilities might stand in flood prone areas, but from the recent years such structures are usually built far from the major river network and outside the known inundation areas. Probably this is the most common and, sometimes, the only, mitigation measure adopted against floods. Also, moving critical facilities far from the main river network, means that they are settled near and over the secondary river network, which is often not known in-detail and characterized by small basins with sudden responses, high urbanization, and with heavy modifications to the natural existing drainage system. Moreover, critical facilities are seldom included in flood risk analyses, especially regarding the indirect impacts. The work is based on a case study area located in Florence (Italy), where one major hospital of the central Italy and one relevant learning center of University of Florence are built over a culverted stream, surrounded by the secondary hydrograph network, inside a set of small sub-basins. A hydrological analysis was carried out, and the hydraulic modeling of the stream was implemented with the help of geophysical prospecting. Particular attention was dedicated to the assessment of direct and indirect impacts of the hazard. The direct impacts were studied starting from a collection of all the building-specific installations and systems, then formulating a damage curve in function of the water height. The indirect and intangible impacts, which can worsen the impacts of the flood, were carefully researched and investigated taking in account factors, among others, as the building accessibility during and after the flood event, the expected service disruption time, the possibility of the structure to be used as shelter, the fluctuation of the number of people expected to be in the building during the event, the consequences on people and on the community of the service disruption, the seasonality impact. Eventually, a comprehensive damage (impact) evaluation technique was developed.

How to cite: Bertoli, G. and Arrighi, C.: Flood risk assessment of educational and health critical facilities, EGU General Assembly 2023, Vienna, Austria, 23–28 Apr 2023, EGU23-5616, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu23-5616, 2023.

Introduction: As one of the major contributors to global greenhouse gas emissions and the world’s third largest economy, Europe is a key stakeholder in the world’s response to climate change and has a global responsibility and opportunity to transition towards a low-carbon economy for healthier, more resilient societies with clean air and liveable cities.  The Lancet Countdown in Europe is the first comprehensive assessment that monitors health and climate change over space and time in Europe reporting on 33 indicators focusing on (section 1) impact, exposure, and vulnerability; (section 2) adaption, planning and resilience; (section 3) mitigation actions and health co-benefits; (section 4) economics and finance; and (section 5) politics and governance.

Results: Health risks (section 1) for almost all indicators tracked have been increasing. Illustratively, clinically relevant pollen seasons are starting 10-20 days earlier each year (1981-2020), the climatic suitability for water-borne and vector-borne diseases (e.g., malaria, dengue, Vibrio) have been rapidly increasing (1951-2020), and - assuming no adaptation - heat exposure is estimated to have increased by 57% between the first and second half of the 21^st century. However, some encouraging trends for adaptation (section 2) could be observed - with countries adopting adaptation plans for health (15/22 assessed in 2021), cities recognising the threat of climate change to public health (118/197 assessed in 2021), or countries implementing early warning systems. Despite some progress in the reduction of the carbon intensity of energy systems and phasing out coal for electricity generation, European mitigations efforts remain inadequate to meet 2030 and 2050 reduction targets (section 3); European energy systems should decarbonise five times the current pace to reach net-zero CO₂ emissions by 2050. Likewise, despite improvements in air pollution levels due to stringent air pollution emission controls, 94% of the European population is still estimated to live at PM_2·5 concentrations higher than the WHO guideline (5 μg/m³ annual mean). Indicators in section 4 illustrate several substantial economic losses due to climate-related health impacts, including losses to due extreme events or reduced labour supply. Yet, European countries still provide overall subsidies to fossil fuels (total of €70·7 billion in 2019), providing further financial strains to meeting decarbonisation targets. Lastly, whilst strengthening the response to climate change requires key actors and institutions to engage with the health dimensions of climate change political, corporate, scientific, and individual engagement remains low (section 5) in the past decades.

Conclusion: This data highlights the accelerating trends in health-related hazards, exposures, vulnerabilities and risk from climate change, and the insufficiently ambitious adaptation and mitigation actions in Europe. However, with health, wellbeing, and equity at its core, accelerated action in line with climate targets could support a healthy, climate-resilient future for all.

How to cite: van Daalen, K., Romanello, M., Rocklöv, J., Semenza, J. C., Tonne, C., Markandya, A., Dasandi, N., Jankin, S., Kendrovski, V., Schmoll, O., Anto, J. M., Nilsson, M., and Lowe, R. and the the Lancet Countdown in Europe consortium.: Towards a climate-resilient healthy future: the Lancet Countdown in Europe, EGU General Assembly 2023, Vienna, Austria, 23–28 Apr 2023, EGU23-13565, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu23-13565, 2023.

Weather and climate variability and trends impact health in a range of different ways. In this work I will cover five hazards, heat/drought, cold, storms/flooding, wildfire, and ‘other’ (e.g. hazards related to infectious diseases). I will give a summary of an expert judgment regarding how much various health outcomes associated with these hazards currently impact the UK population, and how this might change in the future. I will discuss how long exposure needs to be to the hazard before the health outcome is detectable. I will finish with highlighting where there are significant gaps in the literature, and where research groups and funding agencies should focus more, not just in the UK context, but the world. 

This work was done through the Met Office academic partnership “temperature and health” group, and involves a group of 50+ experts in climate and/or health. 

How to cite: Mitchell, D., Barciela, R., Griffith, G., Gasparrini, A., Lo, E., and Simpson, C.: Climate and health in the UK: Thinking across hazards and timescales, EGU General Assembly 2023, Vienna, Austria, 23–28 Apr 2023, EGU23-3427, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu23-3427, 2023.

The Iberian Peninsula is known as a hotspot of climate change where heatwaves (HW) have become more frequent and severe over the last decades. These extreme temperature events are associated with devastating socioeconomic consequences.

Here we address the relationship between HW characteristics and impact on health at 12 Spanish cities over the last 45 years. The findings will contribute to developing accurate proxies to monitor mortality and to develop mitigation strategies at local scale. 

This study aims to explore how different HW characteristics, namely duration, intensity and frequency, influence mortality in 12 different cities of Spain. The ensemble of cities reflects a diversity of climates in Spain, with for example coastal and inland, Mediterranean and Atlantic and lower and higher population density cities. Besides, the performance of two health indices, the recovery factor (RF) and the excess heat factor (EHF), as proxies of HW health impact is investigated to assess which type HWs are potentially more harmful for society and which is its dependence with the city characteristics. The RF measures the capacity to recover at night from daytime heat exposure, while the EHF measures the impact of a sudden heat income. 

We used the high resolution (5km) observations of daily maximum and minimum temperatures (AEMET, in English Spanish MetService) to identify HW events, defined as at least 3 consecutive days with daily maximum temperatures above percentile 95th of the reference period, and daily time series of mortality information (INE, in English National Institute of Statistics) for the 12 different Spanish cities. In this study HWs are identified at each gridpoint and then the HWs affecting each city are analysed.

Here we study how HWs and its characteristics have evolved during the extended summers (May to September) of the 1975-2019 period across cities. Afterwards, we analyse the relationship between HWs and mortality using a quasi-Poisson regression model and distributed lag non-linear models. Models were adjusted by daily mean temperature to obtain the independent effect of HWs from the risk associated with temperature effect. We additionally tested for potential interactive effects by fitting interaction models between temperature and HW typologies (i.e., using different indices). 

Results show that despite a general HW magnification affecting the whole study area, there are significant differences in the characteristics of the HWs at local scale, which could affect the relationship between HW and mortality. Preliminary results for the 3 most populated cities show a significant added risk of mortality during a HW compared to a day without a HW in Mediterranean cities (up to 1.5% in Barcelona and up to 1.2% in Valencia) while non significant results are obtained in Madrid, in central Spain (less than 1.1%). No substantial differences in mortality risk were found in the other cities when comparing a day with a HW and without a HW. 

Our findings support the need for local analysis of the synergies between HW and mortality. 

How to cite: Paredes-Fortuny, L., Salvador, C., Vicedo-Cabrera, A. M., and Khodayar, S.: The impact of heatwave characteristics on the mortality in Spanish cities, EGU General Assembly 2023, Vienna, Austria, 23–28 Apr 2023, EGU23-13633, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu23-13633, 2023.

Outdoor temperatures experienced by people in urban areas are typically higher than those in rural areas due to the urban heat island, but indoor temperatures also vary as a result of differences between buildings. We combined modelling of temperature at city and building scales, to determine the most important sources of variation in exposure to heat stress across London and Southeast England. 

We modelled outdoor temperatures using the WRF model with BEP-BEM for the hot summer of 2018, and used the output to force the EnergyPlus building model to estimate indoor temperatures of residential buildings.

We investigated variations in the residential building stock across the region, as well as demographics. The latter is important because health risks posed by heat also vary with the population’s age, health, and socioeconomic status.

Within the study region, we found large differences in exposure to heat between the urban population of London and the general population of Southeast England, and that as a result outdoor heat exposure is highest for ethnic minority groups, younger people, and the more socioeconomically deprived. However, variations in outdoor temperature within the urban areas of London were much smaller than the variations between London and the rest of the southeast.

We compared the variation in the outdoor temperature with the variation in indoor temperature, building on evidence that flats (apartments) are more likely to overheat, and are more often located in hotter parts of the city than houses. This has implications for interventions on the built environment designed to reduce the health impacts of heat.

By combining thermal modelling at different scales with demographic data, we aim to improve understanding of the sources of personal variations in heat-hazard within the population.

How to cite: Simpson, C., Brousse, O., and Heaviside, C.: Multi-scale analysis of exposure to heat in Southeast England, EGU General Assembly 2023, Vienna, Austria, 23–28 Apr 2023, EGU23-13044, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu23-13044, 2023.

Climate Change has increased population exposure to more frequent, more intense, and longer heat waves (HWs) worldwide. South America and particularly Brazil is highly vulnerable to rising temperatures, with limited adaptation resources and a growing and aging urban population. However still lacks research on the direct and indirect impacts of extreme heat on health in these regions, in particular on the role of social and demographic factors, as well as regional disparities in heat-related mortality. This work presents a comprehensive analysis of the occurrence of HW in the 14 most populous metropolitan regions (MRs) in Brazil, comprising circa 35% of the country's population, based on the Excess Heat Factor index. The impact of HWs on mortality was accessed employing the ratio between observed and expected deaths (O/E), which reveals a burden of 48,075 excess heat-related excess deaths over the 2000–2018 period, in line with the recent and significant increase observed in the annual number of days under extreme heat. Diseases of the circulatory and respiratory systems and neoplasms are the dominant causes of death (COD), although other COD little explored in the literature have also presented large O/E values in some MRs, such as diseases of the skin, nervous and genitourinary system, and mental and behavioral disorders. In addition, the vulnerability population profile was investigated considering the splits in terms of gender, age, race, and educational level subgroups. Overall, females, older, low-educational level, and black/brown are the most sensitive groups in most MRs, with significantly larger O/E values. Nonetheless, significant regional disparities were observed, mainly due to North-South socio-economic inequalities existing in Brazil, and differences in health indicators between these regions, such as life expectancy. Our findings are expected to guide the implementation of public mitigation and adaptation strategies in some of the most populated regions of South America.

This work was supported by FIOCRUZ [grant VPPCB-003-FIO-19] and FAPERJ [grant E26/202.714/2019]. D.M.S. was supported by FIOCRUZ [grant VPPCB-003-FIO-19].

How to cite: Monteiro dos Santos, D., Libonati, R., Garcia, B., Geirinhas, J., Salvi, B., Silva, E., Rodrigues, J., Peres, L., Russo, A., Gracie, R., Gurgel, H., and Trigo, R.: Heat-related excess mortality in Brazilian urban areas: regional, demographic and social disparities, EGU General Assembly 2023, Vienna, Austria, 23–28 Apr 2023, EGU23-482, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu23-482, 2023.

Dengue, the most prevalent arthropod-borne viral infection, is endemic to 100+ countries. Dengue transmission is highly sensitive to climatic and meteorological conditions such as temperature, rainfall and relative humidity, as indicated by the association between increased climatic suitability and expansion of regions at risk. In India, dengue is endemic to all 28 states and eight union territories, with a gradual shift historically observed in their spatial distributions from urban to rural areas. The rising burden due to its frequent outbreaks causes an unprecedented burden on the economy and the health system. Thus, in order to formulate adequate strategies for mitigating dengue risks in future, it is essential to study the patterns in dengue transmission and the influence of meteorological/climatic variables. The present study aims to understand the spatiotemporal variations in dengue cases and the effect of weather parameters on dengue outcomes across India over the past 15 years. State-wise annual data on dengue cases and deaths during 2007 - 2022 was collected from the National Vector-borne Disease Control Programme. India reported more than one million dengue cases and 2,712 deaths for the period, with the highest cases observed in 2021. 73% of the total cases occurred between 2016 and 2022, indicating increased dengue outbreaks across the country. Overall, the case fatality was 2.1 (per 1000 cases), the highest seen in 2007 (12.5). The northern region, with eight states and UTs, reported the highest case count contributing 28% of the country’s caseload. Positive anomalies in the maximum temperature (against a 15-year annual average) were observed from 2012 to 2019, while minimum temperature had negative anomalies – the effect of the same on dengue cases and mortality is being examined along with the effect of socioeconomic differences across the states.

Figure 1 Spatial distribution in dengue cases and deaths across India between 2007-2022. The red dots indicate the deaths. 

How to cite: Sam, A. K., Mukhopadhyay, S., and Phuleria, H. C.: Dengue in India: association with weather and socioeconomic variables, EGU General Assembly 2023, Vienna, Austria, 23–28 Apr 2023, EGU23-5666, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu23-5666, 2023.

Latest IPCC projections (2022) suggest significantly  increased future incidence of infectious disease due to global warming and shifting climate patterns. Due to increasing global mean temperatures and extreme weather event frequency, assessing the potential impacts of climate change on infectious disease represents a critical challenge for public health authorities. This is particularly significant for environmentally-acquired infections which are directly or indirectly driven by local weather conditions. The current study sought to explore the relationship between antecedent weather and three gastrointestinal infections in the Republic of Ireland, namely cryptosporidiosis, Verotoxigenic E. Coli (VTEC) and campylobacteriosis.

Irreversibly anonymised cases of infection were acquired from the national Computerised Infectious Disease Reporting (CIDR) database. Overall, 4,509 cases of cryptosporidiosis (2007 - 2017), 2,755 cases of VTEC enteritis (2013 - 2017) and 20,274 cases of campylobacteriosis (2011 - 2018) were employed. Individual cases were geographically linked to a Census Small Area (SA).

Weekly seasonal adjustment of developed time series (trend & residuals of seasonally decomposed time-series) were undertaken for both climate and infection variables (incidence rate per 100k population). Climate variables were lagged from 1 to 20 weeks to account for likely delayed associations. A series of Spearman’s correlation matrices were subsequently developed. Infections hotspots were identified and used to construct space-time cluster frequency maps (Boudou et al., 2021, Cleary et al. 2021), with Monte-Carlo simulations used to simulate the effects of weekly mean temperature and rainfall changes on space-time cluster frequency. Analyses were delineated (restricted) based on season and settlement type (i.e., rural, urban, commuter areas).

Spearman’s correlation matrices confirmed the presence of ranked associations between rainfall, temperature and all three infections. Weekly VTEC and campylobacteriosis incidence were positively associated with the non-lagged mean temperature (Rho >0.6). Maximum positive associations were obtained between non-lagged rainfall (mm) for VTEC (Rho=0.68) and campylobacteriosis (Rho= 0.6), while a delayed positive association was found for cryptosporidiosis with a maximum Rho of 0.21 (Week 19). Findings from Monte-Carlo simulation provided strong insights on the direct impacts of temperature and rainfall changes on infection cluster frequency. An increase of 1^oC in weekly temperature was simulated to result in an 25% increase in the number of Small Areas reporting a space-time cluster of campylobacteriosis. Similarly, a 5mm increase in weekly rainfall was shown to increase the number of rural SAs reporting a space-time cluster of cryptosporidiosis by ≈4%.

Study findings leave little doubt as to the significance of climate patterns for all three infections, with all shown to increase (incidence rates and/or cluster occurrence) in concurrence with increasing temperatures and rainfall volumes. Accordingly, there is a pressing need for development of adapted health strategies within the context of predicted climate change (i.e., increased testing/surveillance and treatment capacity, improved risk communication during extreme weather events,…). This result points out the need to promote multidisciplinary researches by including meteorologists, hydrologists and engineer in public health planning strategies.

How to cite: Boudou, M., Khandelwal, S., Óhaiseada, C., Garvey, P., O'dwyer, J., and Hynds, P.: The effect of weather and simulated climate parameters on three gastro-intestinal infections in the Republic of Ireland, EGU General Assembly 2023, Vienna, Austria, 23–28 Apr 2023, EGU23-12419, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu23-12419, 2023.

An adequate representation of the distribution of mosquitoes transmitting vector-based diseases under future climate change conditions is essential to estimate the occurrence of those diseases in areas such as the Mediterranean. For this purpose, species distribution models are used to establish a statistical relationship between recent and future environmental conditions and the spread of species. The 19 BioClim variables have been widely used to drive these models because they represent key features (e.g. hot, cold, dry, humid) of different temporal dimensions (quarter or month). The scientific community has paid less attention to the difficulties that arise when using BioClim variables, including how well the climate model can reproduce them. This study intended to assess the skill of 10 different high-resolution regional climate models (RCMs) of the Coordinated Regional Climate Downscaling Experiment’s CORE initiative that represent BioClim variables in Mediterranean regions. The skill analysis was implemented using the metrics of spatial correlation, spatial standard deviation and the mean absolute percentage error. The result reveals that REGCM4 and REMO15 are the best-performing RCMs in terms of standard deviation and the mean absolute percentage error, and RACMO and CCLM4 are the best-performing RCMs in terms of spatial correlation. The result shows that temperature-based BioClim variables are better represented by the majority of RCMs compared to precipitation models. A huge uncertainty remains when it comes to the representation of quarter-based variables. Hence, future studies should be focused on improving the representation of BioClim variables, especially those related to precipitation, by applying appropriate bias correction techniques. The best-performing RCMs of this study will be used to derive different species distribution models of Anopheles mosquitoes over the Mediterranean regions to estimate the future distribution of vector-based diseases.

How to cite: Bangelesa, F., Merkenschlager, C., Hertig, E., and Paeth, H.: Evaluation of CORDEX-CORE RCMs in representing BioClim variables for mosquito distribution models in Mediterranean regions, EGU General Assembly 2023, Vienna, Austria, 23–28 Apr 2023, EGU23-17387, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu23-17387, 2023.

Outdoor thermal comfort is important to city dwellers' well-being and health. Pedestrians are especially sensitive to thermal environments, and their thermal comfort is expected to be at risk due to the urban heat island effect combined with climate change. Pedestrian thermal comfort assessment is crucial to comprise sustainable climate change adaptation strategy. However, pedestrian thermal comfort has been simply evaluated using the survey asking pedestrians about their comfort levels via oral or paper interviews. The survey's shortcoming is that it does not reflect the dynamics of the ever-changing environment and the resultant responder's physiology. The development of wearable sensors overcame the survey's limitation and allowed to detect human physiological responses reflecting the changes in the surrounding environment more objectively. Among several physiological parameters, heart rate(HR) is a representative proxy for physiological thermal stress reflecting environmental heat load. It can be easily monitored by a smartwatch wearing an optical blood flow sensor. Therefore, we aim to investigate the applicability of physiological thermal comfort evaluation based on pedestrians' HRs monitored using a smartwatch in real-walking settings. The experiment was conducted on four streets with an east-west orientation in Suwon, Gyeonggi-do, Korea. The four streets were selected with high or low effects of grey and green infrastructure on the streets' thermal environment based on a building-height-to-street-width(H/W) ratio of 2 and the percentage of tree canopy cover(%TCC) of 50, respectively. The 32 voluntary pedestrians walked one street a day for an hour(14:00-15:00) with a smartwatch(Mi-band4) to record HR of each pedestrian. During walking, microclimates (air and globe temperature, relative humidity, wind velocity) were monitored using a portable meteorological station. After walking, the survey was conducted by asking about their feelings while walking as thermal comfort level. We defined the thermal environment created by grey and green infrastructures as the difference between the street's mean radiant temperature(T_mrt) calculated by the street's microclimates and the official air temperature from the automatic weather station. We also suggested the physiological thermal comfort index(PTCI) to quantify physiological thermal comfort including the cardiovascular risk based on HRs. Consequently, we found the tree's effect was contradictory according to the H/W ratio. The increment of 10%TCC reduced T_mrt by 1.1℃ on the low H/W ratio street but rose T_mrt up to 0.1℃ on the high building street. The TCC's heat dissipation hindrance might cause this result because TCC could block the wind path and interfere with air circulation rather than having the cooling effect of the tree-formed shades on streets where high buildings already form sufficient shade. The PTCI results reflected the thermal environment of each street well because a 10%TCC rise decreased the cardiovascular risk by 8% on the low building street but increased the risk up to 7% on the high building street. However, pedestrians could not perceive the thermal environments' distinctions among streets due to interruption of aesthetic quality other than microclimates. Therefore, we identified that physiological thermal comfort based on HR is more appropriate to be used as a basis for establishing adaptation strategies for pedestrians.

How to cite: Kim, A. and Yoo, G.: Warable sensor-based thermal comfort assessment for pedestrianconsidering the ever-changing thermal environment and physiological response, EGU General Assembly 2023, Vienna, Austria, 23–28 Apr 2023, EGU23-11102, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu23-11102, 2023.