Climate change impacts and vulnerability in Europe 2016

Multi-sectoral vulnerability and risks
It suggested that cities at higher risk are mainly
located over the central continental European belt,
extending from central France to Romania and
Bulgaria, with a few higher risk cities also in the United
Kingdom, southern Greece and the Baltic countries.
Interestingly, the Mediterranean cities show medium
to lower levels of risk. These urban areas have
historically suffered recurrent heat wave episodes and
thus have already developed adaptation measures to
tackle heat waves (Tapia et al., 2015).
Higher temperatures, more sunlight and dry
conditions can also increase air pollutants such as
PM and ozone, adding to health problems under heat
waves. Hot, dry summers with long-lasting periods of
high air pressure over large parts of Europe, such as
the 2003 heat wave, lead to elevated summer ozone
concentrations. Cities in the south of Europe are
already showing higher ozone levels and are expecting
further temperature increases in the future (see also
Section 5.2.4).
Owing to the high soil sealing in cities, any excess water
from extreme rainfall cannot drain into the ground and
instead is led into the sewage system. Sewage systems
are often not designed to take up these amounts of
Map 6.8
Average annual number of nights of thermal discomfort for two indicators
-30°
-20°
-10°
0°
10°
20°
30°
40°
50°
60°
70°
Annual number of nights of
thermal discomfort
Annual number of nights of
thermal discomfort in the
period 2002–2012
0
60°
0.01–5
5–10
10–50
50°
> 50
Annual number of combined
tropical nights (above 20 ºC)
and hot days (above 35 ºC) in
the period 1961–1990
50°
0–2
2–6
6–10
10–14
40°
14–18
18–22
22–26
40°
26–30
30–34
34–38
38–42
-20°
Canary Is.
Azores Is.
-30°
30°
42–46
46–50
30°
40°
> 50
30°
0°
Madeira Is.
10°
20° 0 500 30° 1 000 1 500 km40°
No data
Outside coverage
Note:
As a proxy for thermal comfort, the dots show the average number of nights of thermal discomfort occurring in the period from April to
September. Thermal discomfort is defined as the maximum effective temperature being above 21 °C at midnight (which is different from
air temperature), taking into account the UHI effect. The interactive version of this map, including additional layers, detailed technical
information and further thematic maps, can be found in the EEA map book on urban vulnerability ( 128 ).
Source: Fischer and Schär, 2010; EEA, 2015; EEA et al., 2015.
( 128 ) http://climate-adapt.eea.europa.eu/tools/urban-adaptation/introduction.
Climate change, impacts and vulnerability in Europe 2016 | An indicator-based report
307