In a rapidly warming world, disasters are escalating in frequency and intensity. Climate-related hazards pose serious threats to affected populations, with low- and middle-income countries being at greatest risk and experiencing most disaster-related deaths. While the devastating impacts of these hazards are well documented, how to mitigate such impacts is less well-understood. This paper aims to address this limitation in aid and disaster impact research by examining the effects of aid on disaster fatalities across various types of climate-related hazards. Our analysis focuses on climate-related disasters recorded by the Emergency Events Database (EM-DAT) (CRED 2023), including information on the number of disaster fatalities – the primary dependent variable in this study. We use the geo-coded version of EM-DAT (GDIS) (Rosvold and Buhaug 2021) and calculate meteorological hazard measures for droughts, extreme temperature, floods, and storms. We further account for population exposure, local development (SHDI), compound events, and armed conflict. The paper will make two contributions: First, we provide the first global analysis of drivers of subnational disaster impacts by using an original meteorological reanalysis of hazard severity 1990-2018. Second, we combine novel subnational aid data from GODAD (Bomprezzi et al. 2024) with hand-coded UN disaster aid flow data at the disaster-event level (Dellmuth et al. 2021), allowing us to study how different types of aid shape the humanitarian impacts of disasters. By addressing critical gaps in understanding how aid can reduce disaster fatalities, this work provides urgently needed insights into mitigating human vulnerability in an era of escalating climate risks.
Bomprezzi, Pietro, Axel Dreher, Andreas Fuchs, Teresa Hailer, Andreas Kammerlander, et al. 2024. “Wedded to Prosperity? Informal Influence and Regional Favoritism.”
CRED. 2023. “EM-DAT: The International Disaster Database.” Brussels, Belgium. https://www.emdat.be/.
Dellmuth, Lisa M., Frida A.-M. Bender, Aiden R. Jönsson, Elisabeth L. Rosvold, and Nina von Uexkull. 2021. “Humanitarian Need Drives Multilateral Disaster Aid.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 118 (4). https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2018293118.
Rosvold, Elisabeth L., and Halvard Buhaug. 2021. “GDIS, a Global Dataset of Geocoded Disaster Locations.” Scientific Data 8 (61). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41597-021-00846-6.
How to cite: von Uexkull, N., Berntell, E., Bender, F., Dellmuth, L., and Rao, T.: Mitigating humanitarian impacts of climate-related disasters , EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-17551, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-17551, 2025.
This study aimed to explore the relationship between extreme weather events and subsequent shifts in climate-related beliefs and behaviors. Leveraging public datasets, we analyzed the impact of chronic weather anomalies (i.e., temperature and precipitation deviations from long-term averages) and acute disasters (e.g., wildfires, hurricanes, floods) on pro-climate beliefs, Green Party voting, and solar panel installations at the postcode level across Australia between 2013 and 2022. The results revealed that long-term temperature deviations were associated with stronger climate change beliefs, while long-term precipitation deviations predicted higher Green votes and greater solar panel uptake. Long-term exposure to acute disasters also positively influenced climate belief and Green voting. These results provide valuable insights for researchers, policymakers, and community leaders working to build climate-resilient societies.
How to cite: Ghasemi, O., Malavasi, M., Ransom, C., and Newell, B.: Ten Years of Extreme Weather Events and Their Influence on Climate Beliefs and Behaviours Across Australia, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-14756, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-14756, 2025.
Extreme weather events are increasing in frequency and severity due to climate change. This has prompted some scholars to speculate that these increasingly severe and frequent direct experiences with the impacts of climate change might catalyze greater climate concern, action and policy support, including among more conservative populations that tend to oppose climate policy. However, evidence for the impact of extreme weather events on climate-related attitudes and behaviors is mixed, often correlational, and has tended to focus on climate concern. We extend this literature by using an original longitudinal panel dataset to assess the relationship between severity of recent hurricane experience and various outcome measures, including climate concern and adaptation and mitigation behaviors and policy preferences. This data, and the within-between analytical framework that we adopt, allow us to address concerns about endogeneity that arise in correlational analyses of hurricane experience by focusing on within-person changes overtime before and after an event; assess not only hurricane experience but also how the effects of experience vary with two measures of severity; and examine variation in responses to different outcomes (e.g. mitigation vs. adaptation). Overall, we find that experiencing a hurricane leads to changes in climate-related outcomes, but the effects are nuanced and vary with the specific outcome variable and measure of severity we adopt. Critically, the longitudinal results differ substantially from the cross-sectional results, which imply a strong, positive and significant effect of experience on climate worry, reported behaviors, and policy preferences, highlighting the importance of longitudinal data.
How to cite: Constantino, S.: Longitudinal Evidence on the Mixed Effects of Hurricane Experience on Behaviors and Policy Preferences, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-15049, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-15049, 2025.
How to cite: Young, R., Hinton, T., and Amspacher, K.: Understanding the reluctance of some rural communities to connect climate change with increasing hazard exposure., EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-11482, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-11482, 2025.
Human-induced greenhouse gas emissions are responsible for the rise in global temperatures and changes in the frequency, intensity, and spatial extension of extreme climate events. These climate changes pose significant social challenges and are projected to exacerbate existing economic inequalities. Despite numerous studies assessing the distributive impacts of climate change, there are only a few focusing on exposure, an important dimension of climate risk. Using a new high-resolution gridded dataset of per capita disposable income, we explore the evolution of income-based inequalities in exposure to extreme events related to 5 hazards: heatwaves, cold spells, wilfires, coastal and riverine flooding. Considering both warming scenarios and alternative development pathways, our results show that, high-income groups within countries remain mostly underexposed to extreme events, exhibiting average exposure levels lower than those experienced by low-income groups over the 21st century. This work highlights the existence of climate inequalities in Europe and offers valuable insights for policymakers seeking to design fair climate adaptation strategies.
How to cite: Mikou, M., Vallet, A., Guivarch, C., and Jezequel, A.: Persistent underexposure of high-income groups to extreme climate events in Europe over the 21st century, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-16494, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-16494, 2025.
The increasing frequency of natural disasters due to climate change has intensified pressures on societal well-being. In such times, understanding the institutional features that enable efficient, objective, and neutral disaster recovery is crucial. Recent studies have highlighted the severity of government oversight in disaster relief, often favoring co-partisan groups in developing and clientelistic countries. Disaster recovery systems are particularly vulnerable to the politics of post-disaster fund allocation. However, scholars have suggested that institutional design can counteract these dynamics, with France's mandatory disaster insurance system frequently cited as a model. In this study, we assess the extent to which France's mandatory disaster insurance system has been manipulated for electoral gain during presidential and munipal elections. Utilizing data from the CatNat national repository and municipal elections from 1980 to 2024, we employ a regression discontinuity design to examine how partisanship alignment between local and national governments affects both the demand and the supply side of disaster recognition and the response time. Our preliminary findings indicate that partisan alignment correlates with a higher demand for disaster recognition. However, the French institutional system appears effective in mitigating political distortions, as we find no significant evidence of partisanship influencing disaster relief. This article sheds light on the effectiveness of institutional design in reducing political distortions during the disaster recovery phase.
How to cite: Chazottes, R.: The politics of natural disaster responses, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-5815, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-5815, 2025.
Unprecedented heatwaves have become characteristic of summers worldwide, with devastating impacts on people’s health, well-being, and livelihoods. In light of this urgent threat, government institutions across the globe are developing guidelines and planned interventions to increase resilience to heatwaves – measures which require an understanding of how people adapt to extreme heat within the constraints of daily life. Existing studies have used large-scale mobility data to characterize heatwave adaptation at a population-level, though these studies skew towards cities and regions in high-income countries, have diverse methodologies which limit generalizability to other contexts, and focus on ‘activity level’ changes without discerning which activities are being altered. Addressing these gaps, this study combines ERA5 climate re-analysis, cell phone mobility, and socio-economic data across Brazil, China, France, India, Nigeria, Turkey, and the USA during 2022 heatwaves. For the first six countries, Google Community Mobility Reports data is used in multi-level modeling to explore changes to various everyday activities during heatwaves (home, work, transit, grocery/pharmacy, retail/recreation, parks). In China, Baidu data on intra-city activity levels is analyzed in a complementary multi-level model. Strong patterns of withdrawal towards the home occur during heatwaves, varying with climatic, temporal, and contextual factors. These common patterns result from diverse activity substitutions across countries and simultaneously occur alongside changes towards other non-home activities. This internationally comparative study highlights the global nature of heatwave adaptation, the importance of context-specific adaptive responses, and the value of considering heatwave adaptation through the lens of people’s everyday activities.
How to cite: Yucel, S., Liang, Y., Wang, D., and Schwanen, T.: Everyday adaptation to summer heatwaves: A global perspective, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-6933, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-6933, 2025.
This work presents the results of a global flood displacement risk assessment, using an enhanced probabilistic methodology. Existing studies have typically focused solely on housing damage as a driver of displacement. This methodology expands on that by incorporating the likelihood of losing means of livelihood, as an additional driver of displacement. This new methodology is applied globally for the first time, across two different climate scenarios: current climate conditions (1979–2016) and future long-term projections (2061–2100). The estimated global average annual displacement under current conditions exceeds 13 million and doubles under the long-term pessimistic climate scenario (without considering population growth and other socioeconomic evolutions). This consistent approach ensures comparability of results across countries, and the findings can serve as a baseline for implementing displacement risk adaptation and management measures. This methodology, applied here to displacement, also offers a framework for more objectively assessing disaster-affected populations, a key target of the Sendai Framework.
How to cite: Rossi, L., Ottonelli, D., Ghizzoni, T., Trasforini, E., Ponserre, S., and Rudari, R.: Global flood displacement risk assessment, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-18250, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-18250, 2025.
Climate has been shown to influence migration, yet the mechanisms through which climate events lead to migration as well as the heterogeneous effects on different population groups remain poorly understood. This study addresses these gaps by exploring two key questions: (i) Who are the rural climate migrants in low- and middle-income countries? and (ii) Why do they migrate?. We examine changes in consumption levels and inequalities as potential mechanisms linking climate events to migration, employing the Roy-Borjas model to explain the self-selection of climate migrants based on skills and wealth. Using ERA5 weather data combined with 45,000 household observations from South Africa, Tanzania, Malawi, and China over two to four years, our fixed-effects models reveal that rising temperatures and declining precipitation drive rural-to-urban migration by reducing rural consumption and increasing consumption inequality. Our findings indicate that less educated individuals from middle-income households are more likely to migrate in response to climate events. These results underscore the heterogeneous effects of climate change on different population groups and highlight the need to (i) better understand the impacts of climate migration on affected households and (ii) develop targeted support for vulnerable populations who may become trapped by liquidity constraints.
How to cite: Lohr, S. and Šedová, B.: Climate-related rural-to-urban migration: Empirical evidence on the economic drivers in low-and middle-income countries, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-16388, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-16388, 2025.
Landscapes of Resilience: Visual Narratives from Bangladesh’s Vulnerable Coastal Communities
Bangladesh’s coastal regions, vulnerable to climate change, are not only areas of environmental concern but also rich repositories of cultural, social, and economic heritage. This study explores the resilience of these communities through a blend of visual storytelling and empirical research, with a specific focus on the pivotal roles of women as custodians of cultural heritage and community cohesion. Women in these regions navigate complex challenges, including risk perception, property rights, and governance, while actively contributing to the preservation of traditions and fostering communal resilience amidst environmental adversities. The study utilizes multiple-medias artworks, animations, and a documentary titled "Land, Life, and Woman" to delve into how land tenure systems, customary practices, and climate risks intersect to shape individuals’ decisions to remain rooted despite escalating environmental challenges. Central to the research is documenting women’s lived experiences and advocating for inclusive and sustainable approaches to climate adaptation, land governance, and cultural preservation. By integrating art and science, the study bridges the gap between global climate policy narratives and localized adaptation strategies, offering a deeply humanized perspective on climate resilience. The study adopts a mixed-method approach, encompassing visual media analysis to examine depictions of community resilience, qualitative interviews with women in vulnerable deltaic communities to understand their challenges and strategies, and documentary research to contextualize findings within broader governance frameworks. Through this interdisciplinary approach, the research highlights the critical influence of land tenure systems on community resilience, the interplay of state policies, international agreements, and customary practices in shaping governance, and the invaluable contributions of women in preserving cultural heritage while navigating climate challenges. The accompanying documentary vividly portrays these dynamics, illustrating the resilience and adaptability of individuals in delta regions. Aligned with the EGU 2025 theme of climate adaptation and sustainable development, this presentation contributes a unique perspective that merges visual storytelling with empirical research, emphasizing the socio-cultural dimensions of climate resilience. It underscores the importance of integrating local narratives into global climate adaptation strategies and advocates for equitable, sustainable approaches that empower marginalized groups while addressing climate risks. By documenting and visually representing these stories, the study not only contributes to the discourse on climate resilience but also emphasizes the transformative potential of integrating artistic expression with research to foster understanding and inspire action.
How to cite: Singha, S. and Hasan, Md. M.: Landscapes of Resilience: Visual Narratives from Bangladesh’s Vulnerable Coastal Communities , EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-1126, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-1126, 2025.
Drought is a costly experience shared by different human societies, and many of its far-reaching impacts on various components of socio-ecological systems tend to be exacerbated by increasingly frequent and intensive compound heatwaves. To provide a historical and systematic perspective of climate-society interplays in different socio-environmental contexts, this study selected Germany (DE) and Jing-Jin-Ji Region of China (JJJ) as study areas, which are dominated by marine and monsoon climates, respectively. Based on climate reconstructions and multilingual written documents, comparisons on three pairs of compound drought-heatwave events (CDHWs) in agrarian societies (DE 1834 / JJJ 1832 events), during industrialization (DE 1921 / JJJ 1920 events), and in recent years (DE 2018 / JJJ 1997 events) were conducted, focusing on pathways to food security, water security, and health. Overall, social development, rather than distinct climate systems or cultural backgrounds, was identified as the main contributor to differences between events.
(1) FOOD SECURITY: In different events, pathways to food insecurity can mostly be summarized as the impact chain of precipitation deficits → natural system (insect plague, soil moisture) → production system (crop performance) → consumption system (price) → food security. Heatwaves here aggravated existing drought impacts on natural system and production subsystem. Reactive actions to balance food supply and demand after harvest failures were commonly observed in many cases. However, it was not until entering modern societies that survival-threatening manifestation (i.e., food crisis) and subsequent health and/or social issues (e.g., starvation, displacement, crimes) were averted, thanks to stronger interventions at earlier links in the impact chain (e.g., retain soil moisture, compensate for harvest losses by techniques or imports).
(2) WATER SECURITY: Under different circumstance, a common impact chain leading to water insecurity was also recognized, namely precipitation deficits → natural system (surface water and groundwater) → infrastructure subsystem (water facilities) → water security. Heatwaves here not only exacerbated hydrological deficits in natural system but also stressed infrastructure subsystem by increasing water consumption. Water transport, storage and restriction were temporary measures commonly taken at different development stages, while long-term actions towards sustainable water management and resilient water supply were peculiar to modern societies. Nevertheless, survival-threatening manifestation (i.e., insufficient drinking water) was still reported in recent years, as abovementioned efforts were either difficult to maintain in prolonged CDHWs or took time to be effective. This suggested a greater need for anticipatory adaptation.
(3) HEALTH: Heatwaves has replaced drought as the dominant climatic impact-driver of mortality in recent CDHWs, with a short impact chain of extreme heat → health. Different from the creeping nature of drought, heat manifests as a direct shock to individuals, which means that the time-honored coping strategy of gradually restoring supply-demand balance for scarce resources is less applicable in this case. Currently, prevailing interventions in heat threats to health in both study areas are developing warnings systems for extreme weathers, giving advice on heat protection, adjusting working hours, and changing consumption habits. However, none of them is sufficient to avoid heat-induced mortality, which implied a common adaptation gap on the warming planet.
How to cite: Zhang, D., Glaser, R., and Kahle, M.: Comparative study on societal impacts of and responses to compound drought-heatwave events: six cases in Germany and Jing-Jin-Ji Region (China) since the 19th century, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-1832, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-1832, 2025.
The record-shattering North American Pacific Northwest heatwave of June 2021 had catastrophic physical and social impacts on human mortality and morbidity, agriculture, critical infrastructure, cryospheric and hydrologic systems, and wildfire (White et al., 2023). As a result, the 2021 heatwave was an unprecedented event of global significance; however, due to its extremity and rarity, it is difficult to contextualize how the serious regional impacts vary as a function of social and climatological state. In other words, how would the impacts of such an event differed if the same magnitude and location of event were to have occurred in the past or future?
Here, we take advantage of archive newspapers to address this knowledge gap and to provide a detailed account of the pan-societal impacts of an extreme 1941 Pacific Northwest heatwave, which was recently identified as being of comparable relative magnitude to the 2021 event (Malinina and Gillett, 2024). We use hundreds of articles from 17 North American news publications spanning a three-week period including before, during, and after the heatwave. We find extraordinarily detailed news coverage of the heatwave, with articles reporting: human mortality and morbidity, including deaths that were directly (e.g. heat stress) and indirectly (e.g. high-risk behaviours to cool down) caused by the heatwave; behavioral responses, including altered intra-city mobility; policy responses, including water restrictions in response to water shortages; impacts on agricultural systems, including a high degree of spatial heterogeneity in changes to both production and trade; and physical impacts, including heatwave-caused storms, wildfires, and flooding. The news coverage also offers valuable context for the heatwave in terms of regional and global events at the time, and policy responses are directly linked to broader global conflict (e.g. decisions regarding wildfire and lumber operations are linked to Canadian efforts in World War II).
We demonstrate that archive newspapers can offer a remarkable level of detail in characterizing extreme events in the mid-20th century, especially those that occurred in periods or places with limited physical data, and we are able to use these historical insights to better understand the broader context and impacts of modern extreme events.
References
Malinina, E and Gillett, N. The 2021 heatwave was less rare in Western Canada than previously thought. Weather and Climate Extremes 43, 100642 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.wace.2024.100642.
White, R.H., Anderson, S., Booth, J.F. et al. The unprecedented Pacific Northwest heatwave of June 2021. Nat Commun 14, 727 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-023-36289-3
How to cite: Anderson, S. and Chartrand, S.: The unprecedented Pacific Northwest heatwave of 1941: Digitized newspapers to understand far-reaching physical and social impacts, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-3818, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-3818, 2025.
Artisanal fishing, a traditional livelihood passed down through generations, has become increasingly insecure due to various climatic and non-climatic factors. Despite its significance, there is still limited research on how climate-related challenges interact with pre-existing livelihood vulnerabilities, and even fewer studies explore whether these combined effects heighten the risk of violent conflict for small-scale fishers. To address this gap, a qualitative approach using life history interviews was employed to collect data on the perception of small-scale fishermen (N=30) who reside on Hatiya Island, a sandbar in Southern Bangladesh. These interviews captured fishers’ perceptions of climate impacts, debt trap, livelihood insecurity, violent conflicts, and coping strategies. The findings reveal that shifting climatic patterns—affecting fish populations and availability—exacerbate existing vulnerabilities, a trend reflected not only in Hatiya but also across Bangladesh and beyond. Our analysis highlights that the interplay of climate impacts, poverty, lack of alternative livelihoods, restricted access to credit, poor governance, and fishing bans significantly increases the livelihood vulnerability of small-scale fishers. However, small-scale fishers' primary concern lies not in the decreasing availability of fish stocks but in the challenges posed by the restricted access to fishing grounds. Extreme livelihood insecurity drives fishers’ decisions to engage in illegal fishing and consequently face violence from enforcers of fishing ban regulations. Despite such violence, many fishermen persist in pursuing their livelihoods for lack of a feasible alternative. However, this persistence comes at a cost, as it fuels deep-seated grievances towards the authorities.
How to cite: Suza, M., Warner, J., Nelson, K., and van Dijk, H.: Climate, Livelihood Insecurity, and Conflict over Fishing Access in Southern Bangladesh, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-3876, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-3876, 2025.
Urban greenspace (UG) is vital for urban climate regulation and public health, drawing increasing attention to greenspace exposure (GE) at different levels. However, limited understanding persists regarding human mobility-related GE, particularly the fine-grained dynamics of travel-related GE and the potential influence of environmental conditions such as weather and air pollution. This study examines how environmental conditions impact daily travel-related GE among urban residents, utilizing dockless bike-sharing data from Beijing, China. Firstly, spatiotemporal dynamics and inequalities in GE during travel were assessed using a population-weighted exposure model and the Gini index. Next, the effects of environmental conditions were evaluated through multiple models, including Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) regression and machine learning approaches: Random Forest (RF), Light Gradient Boosting Machine (LightGBM), Categorical Boosting (CatBoost), and Extreme Gradient Boosting (XGBoost). The deep learning network Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) model was also included to account because of its effectiveness in processing time-series data. Model performance was evaluated using Mean Absolute Error (MAE), Root Mean Squared Error (RMSE), R-squared (R²), and cross-validation. Finally, SHapley Additive exPlanation (SHAP) and Partial Dependency Plots (PDP) were employed to analyze nonlinear effects and variable interactions. Results showed that XGBoost outperforms other models and is more applicable to small sample datasets than deep learning. Findings revealed that weather and air pollution significantly influenced GE during travel in addition to temporal factors (e.g., hour of the day, day of the week). Higher temperatures and lower humidity were associated with increased GE levels and reduced inequality. Severe ozone pollution events reduced GE levels but also lowered inequality. No significant impact of particulate matter (PM) on GE was observed due to the absence of severe haze events during the study period. These findings provide valuable insights for urban greenspace planning and strategies to promote healthy travel behaviors.
How to cite: Xu, X. and Poslad, S.: Evaluating the impact of environmental conditions on urban residents’ greenspace exposure during daily travel: An explainable machine learning approach, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-4869, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-4869, 2025.
The second half of 20th century is marked by mass migration from rural to urban areas worldwide as well as in Republic of Serbia. This trend continues in the 21st century usually as a consequence of pull factors of urban areas (education and job opportunities, affordable healthcare system, comprehensive cultural content, etc.), but also of push factors of rural areas (hard and unstable work in the agricultural sector, poverty, lack of education and health system, etc.). Some of extreme climate events (e.g. droughts, floods) speed up the migration process. In this research, the data that show the increase of urban population and decrease of rural population from 1981 to 2022 are presented. Also, Copernicus Corine Land Cover data are used to present the change of land use from 1990 to 2018. The most densely populated municipalities and municipalities with the highest percentage of agricultural areas are extracted with the aim to consider how sever those communities will be affected by extreme weather events. Future climate projections data (two scenarios RCP 4.5 and RCP 8.5) are used to express the number of tropical days and nights, heath wave index, number of days with precipitation over 30mm, highest five days precipitation amount, consecutive dry days index and hydro-thermal coefficient. The purpose of this research is to determine did people migrate to urban areas that will be more affected by extreme weather events in 21st century than the rural regions they moved from and how sever agricultural regions will be affected by droughts and floods as a consequence of lack and intensive precipitation. The data used in this research are downloaded from the Digital Climate Atlas of Serbia, Copernicus Land Monitoring Services and documents published by the Statistical Office of the Republic of Serbia. QGIS Open Software is used for data analyses.
How to cite: Jakovljevic, T. and Miric, N.: Rural-to-Urban Migration and Projection of Extreme Weather Events: A Case Study of Republic of Serbia, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-9993, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-9993, 2025.
As anthropogenic impacts on the global climate intensify, heatwaves are becoming increasingly severe, frequent, and prolonged worldwide. In parallel, the rapid pace of urbanization underscores the urgent need to understand the impacts of extreme temperatures on the well-being of urban populations. In this study we leverage mobility information from mobile phone data to analyze occupancy patterns in Zurich’s leisure facilities during hot summer and heatwave days. Our goal is to characterize city dwellers’ heat alleviation strategies towards active and passive cooling facilities. Additionally, we identify key infrastructural features of open public spaces contributing to thermal comfort and areas’ attractiveness. Our findings suggest that bathing sites serve as primary heat retreat destinations in Zurich, where major increases in areas’ attractiveness are observed during the hottest days of the year. Moreover, while local conveniences, transport connectivity and cultural amenities influence baseline open public spaces’ attractiveness, seasonal variations are more strongly governed by temperature regulation features, such as waterfront extent, vegetation canopy, and the presence of artificial water structures. Our study highlights water as an essential component of cities’ adaptation to heat, emphasizing its importance in enhancing urban resilience. Mobility data offers valuable insights into collective behavioral responses to climate constraints, supporting data-driven strategies to identify, enhance, and promote effective heat retreat locations within urban environments.
How to cite: Burattini Freire, I., Gobatti, L., Leitão, J. P., and Behnisch, M.: Take refuge! Using mobile phone data to evaluate Blue-Green Infrastructure's attractiveness as Heat Retreat Locations, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-12584, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-12584, 2025.
Convection-permitting model outputs offer significant opportunities for training statistical downscaling approaches. The Coordinated Regional Climate Downscaling Experiment (CORDEX) on the urban environment and regional climate change ensemble simulations provide valuable insights into the uncertainties of numerical atmospheric models. Traditional weather generators, based on the Maximum Likelihood for the Generalised Linear Model approach, have been instrumental in modelling precipitation occurrence and amount. This study advances the statistical downscaling method by integrating Generative AI approaches, using deep learning to create stochastic precipitation ensembles.
Compared to deterministic simulations, this new probabilistic approach allows for an exploration of the nonstationary statistical properties influenced by regional climate conditions through more feasible nonlinear representation for the weather generator parameters by deep learning. Emphasis is placed on the importance of probabilistic and agnostic methods in exploring, interpreting, and explaining uncertainties.
Findings related to temperature variations for daily precipitation extremes attribute the roles of sensible and latent heat, which are further interpreted through regional processes. The integration of generative AI highlights the stochastic uncertainties in weather generators, emphasising the need for consistency between deterministic convection-permitting model outputs and observational data. By examining scaling relationships, the interpretability and explainability of model outputs, particularly concerning energy balance processes, are demonstrated.
Through interpretable and explainable statistical downscaling, the approach to modelling precipitation extremes based on maximum likelihood theory fosters international collaboration in the Climate Collaboratorium* project (IIRCC; ‘Exploring climate solutions with interactive theatre’)This includes contributions from Canada, Germany, the UK, and the US, aimed at providing accessible science that can inform climate decisions in partnership with social science/arts and humanities researchers, tailored to place-based user needs. Advocacy for responsible AI in atmospheric and water sciences facilitates interdisciplinary climate adaptation and mitigation with Taiwanese and Brazilian communities. This approach promotes transparency and fairness through explainable and interpretable climate scenarios. By incorporating immersive experiences and smart decision-making processes, the pathway for human oversight remains central to fair climate action to achieve Sustainable Development Goal 13.
*https://www.ukri.org/publications/international-science-partnerships-fund-iircc-initiative-funded-projects/international-joint-initiative-for-research-in-climate-change-adaptation-and-mitigation-project-overview/
How to cite: Chun, K. P., Mijic, A., Danaila, L., Porfirio da Rocha, R., Octavianti, T., Huang, L., Fernandez, J., Aragao, L., Ezber, Y., Toker, E., Hartmann, A., Wu, Y., Marin, L. A. M., Risanto, C. B., Cheng, L., and McEwen, L.: Weather Generator Based on Generative AI for Interdisciplinary Probabilistic Downscaling Using Convection-Permitting Model Outputs and Potential Utility in Equitable, Community-focused Climate Scenario-ing, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-12640, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-12640, 2025.
The survey method is a common tool in environmental social science research, used to widely collect public or participant perspectives on environmental issues, and analyze variables such as attitudes, backgrounds, and actions. However, the reliability and validity of the survey method have long been challenged. For instance, self-reported questionnaires often lead to self-enhancement bias, and recalling historical experiences may rely on the availability heuristic, enhancing the influence of recent events.
Previous studies have proposed the local warming (or weather) effect, which suggests that there will be response bias caused by current weather conditions, such as the recent temperature when surveying, which can influence the beliefs and risk perceptions about climate change. However, these kinds of responses are unstable, especially when emotion takes place; they fail to predict long-term actions or habits. This will cause overlooked research, potentially leading to exaggerated claims of effect sizes.
To test the bias caused by the local warming effect, this study utilizes data from the 2020 Taiwan Social Change Survey: Environment, which surveyed over 2,000 residents across Taiwan about environmental issues. The survey recorded participants' administrative districts and interview times. We selected variables that might be influenced by temperature, including environmental concern (from Protection Motivation Theory), environmental justice (from the Norm Activation Model), temporal distance and spatial distances (from Construal Level Theory), and high and low-cost environmental action willingness (from Low-Cost Hypothesis). We examined the regression relationships between these variables and absolute temperatures and temperature anomalies over 3-day/1-week/1-month/1-year before surveying.
The results indicate that Environmental concern is influenced by absolute temperatures across all time scales and temperature variations over one week to one month. Environmental justice is affected by absolute temperatures within a month and 1-week~1-month temperature anomaly. Temporal distance is positively impacted under all temperature scenarios, while spatial distances are influenced by absolute temperatures within a month.
Regarding environmental actions, both high-cost and low-cost actions are influenced by absolute temperatures within a month, and 1-month ~ 1-year temperature anomaly. Mediation analysis reveals that 3-day absolute temperatures influence environmental action willingness through the mediating of environmental justice and environmental concern. On the other hand, the mediation effect of environmental concern does not appear under 1-week ~ 1-year absolute temperatures.
To confirm that temperature only induces changes temporally, we also examined questions focusing on past habitual behaviors. Results show that environmental information browsing is influenced only by monthly to yearly temperature scales, while environmental actions are only affected by yearly temperatures.
In conclusion, our findings suggest that responses obtained through questionnaires are significantly influenced by recent weather and may not fully reflect participants' long-term stable conditions. However, if temperature anomalies are long enough, it still has the potential to affect environmental habits.
How to cite: Hsu, L.-Y., Chen, S., Tsai, Y.-S., Tseng, W.-L., and Chang, J.-H.: Examine the Survey Bias Caused by Local Warming Effect, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-14636, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-14636, 2025.
The two-way feedback system between the climate and human systems is essential to consider for effective adaptation to future climate challenges. This two-way feedback encompasses human contribution to the increase in extreme events in the climate system as well as the range of consequences extreme events inflict on humans, particularly on their behavior. Studies indicate that the simultaneous occurrence of two or more climate extremes referred to as compound climate extremes, is increasing, similarly to that of individual extreme events. While localized research has highlighted the influence of extreme events on human behaviors via climate risk perception, climate change beliefs, and response/preparedness behavior, there is a lack of literature considering the effect of compound extreme events on human behavior. Compound climate extremes amplify the devastating, multi-sectoral impacts of extremes, making it crucial to understand how compound extremes influence human behavior to better predict, prepare for, and respond to future extremes.
In this study, we investigate the future impacts of compound extremes on human behaviors on a global scale, using a highly aggregated two-way (climate-human) feedback driven model known as 'Feedback-based knowledge Repository for Integrated Assessments' (FRIDA v2.0) (WorldTrans, 2024). FRIDA models climate risk perception as a combination of two outputs from its climate module: extreme event exposure and the global surface temperature anomaly. Climate risk perception is feed into specific process-based sub-modules such as animal product or energy demand, which underlie individual human decisions in different areas. In addition to the climate risk perception, the demand sub-modules are dependent on a descriptive norm and perceived accessibility.
This study is expected to provide insights on human behavioral change in avenues such as diet, transport, heating or cooling as a result of compound extreme event exposure and awareness; and ultimately offer a foundation for improved prediction, preparedness, and policy design to mitigate future impacts on both human and climate systems.
This work is supported by WorldTrans – TRANSPARENT ASSESSMENTS FOR REAL PEOPLE, which has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2.5 – Climate Energy and Mobility programme under grant agreement No. 101081661 and by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology, FCT, IP/MCTES through national funds: UID/50019/2025 and LA/P/0068/2020 https://doi.org/10.54499/LA/P/0068/2020.
How to cite: Li, C., Koberle, A., and Russo, A.: Impacts of compound extreme events on human behavior: A systems dynamics approach , EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-18555, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-18555, 2025.
Many low- and middle-income countries in Africa face heightened flood risks and significant socio-economic impacts due to climate change, despite contributing minimally to global emissions. However, current flood datasets often lack the necessary resolution (above 250m) and duration to focus effectively on floods in these regions, complicating climate mitigation and adaptation efforts. This study aims to develop long-term, high-resolution spatiotemporal datasets to better characterize flood patterns and their socio-economic impacts across Africa. Using satellite imagery from Landsat and Sentinel-2, we mapped monthly flood inundation extents from 1984 to 2024, producing a flood dataset with a high spatial resolution of 30m to 10m for the entire African continent. We integrated these flood data with socio-economic metrics—population, GDP, and displacement figures—to assess socio-economic vulnerability across African countries. The results show that most African countries have witnessed an increase in affected population by floods over the past 40 years, with Comoros rising by 11.5% of the total population, Madagascar by 6.9%, Liberia by 5.7%, and Congo by 4.3%, identifying these countries as hotspots. In the last decade alone, flood-induced displacements have affected nearly 15 million people, predominantly in low-income countries, while upper-middle-income countries have shown better resilience in flood response. With the growing prevalence of floods and their uneven socio-economic repercussions, these high-resolution datasets are indispensable for shaping effective climate adaptation and mitigation measures, enabling precise and targeted actions. Policies should focus on strengthening flood response capacities and prioritizing support for socio-economically vulnerable regions to minimize flood-related consequences.
How to cite: Nguyen, H.-M.-T., Omer, A., Lee, H., Kwon, Y.-J., and Kim, H.: High-resolution Insights into Africa's Escalating Flood Risks and Socio-economic Vulnerability, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-18676, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-18676, 2025.
On December 18, 2020, the village of Seyðisfjörður, located on the East coast of Iceland, was struck by a significant mudslide. This event followed an extended period of unusual rainfall, atypical for a season generally dominated by snowfall. Such weather anomalies are likely linked to climate change, contributing to rising temperatures, increased precipitation, intensified wind and more frequent flooding over recent years. The mudslide destroyed ten residential structures and necessitated the evacuation of the village's approximately 700 residents for one week. A subsequent study was conducted to evaluate the effects of this natural disaster on the social resilience and overall well-being of the community. Social resilience refers to the ability of a community to adapt to challenges and recover from adverse events, which can mitigate long-term consequences, including demographic decline. The effects of the mudslides imposed significant challenges on the residents of Seyðisfjörður, altering their perceptions of the surrounding mountainous landscape and environment. Data collection for the study involved interviews with residents, focusing on their physical health, trauma symptoms, and reactions to the landslide. Findings revealed that nearly half of the interviewees scored in the harmful stress range for post-traumatic stress as assessed by the PSS-4 scale. Additionally, heightened apprehension regarding weather conditions, particularly rainfall, aggravated and prolonged psychological distress among community members. Nevertheless, residents expressed general satisfaction with the clean-up and replanting efforts, noting positive psychological effects from these initiatives. It is imperative to continue monitoring developments in Seyðisfjörður while prioritizing the needs and well-being of its residents moving forward.
How to cite: Halldórsdóttir, T. K. and Gunnarsdóttir, U.: The impact of natural disasters on social resilience and the health of the population, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-20896, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-20896, 2025.
Posters virtual: Fri, 2 May, 14:00–15:45 | vPoster spot 2
EGU25-6756 | Posters virtual | VPS30
Causal linkages of human migration flow networks: A regional analysisFri, 02 May, 14:00–15:45 (CEST) | vP2.14
Migration is one of human’s most drastic adaptation strategies against unfavorable conditions. With flows from and to origins and destinations, migration data are necessarily network data. Embedded within network data is interdependency among data points (flows) that renders some traditional statistical analyses, including causal inference techniques, inappropriate. To address this issue, we have developed a novel analysis, combining causal inference techniques with quadratic assignment procedure (QAP) to infer causal relationships from network data and applied it to the datasets that include migration flows and their potential drivers – these include socioeconomic, political, and environmental factors (e.g., flood and drought). We implemented this analysis for the African region data. The preliminary results are reported; the limitations and future work are discussed. We anticipate that this novel method will be applicable to a wide variety of network data in other fields.
How to cite: Muneepeerakul, R.: Causal linkages of human migration flow networks: A regional analysis, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-6756, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-6756, 2025.
