Climate change impacts and vulnerability in Europe 2016

Multi-sectoral vulnerability and risks
Map 6.2
Projected 'winners' and 'losers' from climate change
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Multi-sectoral hotspots of climate change under a global warming of 2 °C
Number of hotspots
0 1 2 3 4 5 No data Outside coverage
0 500 1 000 1 500 km
Note: The impacts as shown in the maps refer to a warming of 2 °C above the pre-industrial level. The time period when warming of 2 °C
above the pre-industrial level is reached varies depending on the RCP scenario and climate model. For RCP8.5, most climate models
project that the 2 °C threshold will be reached in the 2030s, while for RCP4.5 most climate models project the 2 °C threshold to be
reached around the middle of the century.
Source: Adapted from IMPACT2C project, 2015.
southern Europe have been identified as multi-sectoral
hotspot 'losers', indicating that the impacts from a
changing climate on the sectors in these regions are
projected to be predominantly negative. Regions with
a particularly high number of sectors projected to be
negatively affected are found on the Iberian Peninsula,
in southern and central France, and in Italy (see right
panel of Map 6.2) (IMPACT2C project, 2015). Likewise,
a study by the ISI-MIP project has identified southern
(and also south-eastern) Europe as the region with
potentially the most severe impacts across multiple
sectors in Europe (and actually the second largest
hotspot region globally) (Piontek et al., 2014).
The IMPACT2C results emerge from an assessment of
eight impact criteria in relation to the sectors 'water',
'agriculture', 'tourism' and 'ecosystems', and based
on up to 10 regional climate models simulating the
RCP4.5 and RCP8.5 scenarios. The impact criteria used
are cooling water level, hydrological droughts (river
low flow level, 10-year return period), floods (10-year
return period), crop yield (winter wheat), value at risk
for summer and winter tourism (measured as changes
in overnight stays), and terrestrial ecosystem function
(net primary productivity and soil organic carbon). For
each criterion, winner hotspots and loser hotspots
were defined based on EU policy thresholds and
scientific literature (depending on availability). Robust
hotspots were defined either based on a majority rule,
such that the majority of models (e.g. 6 out of 10) had
to agree that a given grid cell was indeed a hotspot,
or, for some criteria, based on the median response
over all simulations. In the assessment, however,
SSP information (i.e. potential future socio-economic
changes, such as demography and economy) was taken
into account only for tourism (SSP1, 2 and 3).
6.2.3 Multi-hazard exposure
Multi-sectoral impacts and vulnerabilities can also be
studied by explicitly distinguishing between multiple
climate-related hazards. Such an approach shows that
Europe could face a progressive increase in overall
climate-related hazards from the 2020s to the 2050s
and further to the 2080s, with a prominent spatial
gradient from north-eastern towards south-western
Europe (see Map 6.3). This gradient is mainly driven
by projected increases in heat waves, droughts and
Climate change, impacts and vulnerability in Europe 2016 | An indicator-based report
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