Regionalised urban climate-risk mapping for Trnava (Slovakia): integrating Euro-CORDEX-scale projections with local evidence (TRACAP)

Urban areas in Central Europe face rapidly increasing risks from extreme heat and drought, with cascading impacts on health, critical services, and peri-urban food production. Within the TRACAP project, we develop a municipal-scale climate-risk evidence base for Trnava (Slovakia) by combining regional climate projections with local observations and spatial layers describing exposure and vulnerability. Heat hazard is characterised using scenario-based indicators of hot conditions (frequency and severity of hot days/heatwave episodes) and complemented by remote-sensing land-surface temperature to identify persistent urban hot spots and overheating risk for sensitive facilities and populations. Agricultural drought risk is assessed using climate-driven indicators describing water-stress conditions relevant to crop production (precipitation deficit, atmospheric evaporative demand, and drought persistence), and linked to local land use and crop distributions to quantify potential impacts on yields and revenue. Risk is derived by overlaying heat and drought hazards with exposure (critical services, vulnerable buildings, transport assets, and agricultural areas) and vulnerability proxies, producing prioritised hotspots and decision-ready metrics for adaptation planning. The approach demonstrates how workflow-based risk assessment can be operationalised for cities with limited internal capacity, enabling transparent prioritisation of cooling strategies, nature-based solutions, water-retention measures, and drought-resilient agricultural practices.