Climate change impacts and vulnerability in Europe 2016

Multi-sectoral vulnerability and risks
Box 6.1
National case study: the German vulnerability assessment
As requested by the first German national Adaptation Action Plan (APA I) in 2011, a standardised, cross-sector assessment
of current and future climate change impacts and vulnerabilities was prepared in 2015 in order to provide official evidence
for the second Adaptation Action Plan (APA II). The APA II and the vulnerability analysis are part of the progress report
for the German Adaptation Strategy, adopted in 2015. The cross-sector assessment required the cooperation of many
actors from various areas of expertise. For this reason, the Federal Ministry for the Environment (BMUB) and the Federal
Environment Agency (UBA) started the Vulnerability Network in 2011. This network is composed of 16 Federal agencies and
institutes, mandated by their ministries, and was supported by a scientific consortium. By working together, a co-design of
the assessment could be reached, which also facilitated the communication and ensured the applicability of the results in
the following political process.
First, the Vulnerability Network created a consistent cross-sector methodology based on a joint understanding of
vulnerability and of related terms adapted from the concept of vulnerability, as set out in the IPCC AR4 (2007). To visualise
the cause–effect relationships between climate drivers and possible impacts, as well as the connections between the
15 areas for action of the German Adaptation Strategy, the network defined 'impact chains'. These represent climate drivers
that influence particular climate impacts. Out of the about 170 impacts identified, network partners chose 72 for further
analysis and 38 could be at least partly quantified for three time frames: the present, the near future (2021 to 2050) and the
distant future (2071 to 2100).
Key sensitivities were subsequently worked out by invited experts and network partners. For the near future, two scenario
combinations, one for a strong and one for a weak change based on socio-economic and climate change scenarios, were
used to cover the range of possible futures. For the remote future, no socio-economic scenarios were available. Therefore,
these results rest only upon the ensemble of climate change projections.
In a final step, the confidence level and the significance of the results for Germany were accessed by the Network. For
each area for action, information on its adaptation capacity, based upon expert interviews, was combined narratively
by using a matrix with the potential sectoral climate change impact, to give a rough estimation of its vulnerability (low,
medium or high). For example, the climate change impact potential of the water sector was calculated as 'medium to
high' as a weighted mean of the investigated single climate change impacts in the water sector (see Table 6.2) for the near
future under strong change. In combination with the adaptive capacity of the water sector, which was also estimated to be
medium to high based on expert interviews, its vulnerability is considered to be medium.
The key impacts of climate change in Germany until the middle of the century will be heat waves in urban regions, fluvial
floods, particularly in northern Germany, and flash floods in southern Germany. These climate impacts will threaten mainly
human health and infrastructures in urban agglomerations. Gradual climate change is already affecting biodiversity,
agriculture and forestry, as well as human health. In the long term, dry spells will also have an important effect on water
uses, mainly in rural areas, and sea level rise will affect the coasts. The areas for action that are expected to be strongly
affected by climate change in the future are construction and coastal and sea protection. Construction, fisheries and
biodiversity are the most vulnerable areas for action.
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