Climate change impacts and vulnerability in Europe 2016

Multi-sectoral vulnerability and risks
From a global perspective, cities in developed countries
such as those in Europe are relatively well prepared
to cope with most of the current impacts of climate
owing to well-established infrastructures, standards,
emergency services, access to knowledge, etc. However,
climate change requires major upgrades as well as
transformational adaption measures, and only a few
cities already have the capacity to do this (UN-HABITAT,
2011; Revi et al., 2014).
Box 6.3
The need for regional or international management of urban flood risks
The city of Vac (Hungary) faces severe flooding challenges almost every four years. Flooding is not only a result of
increasingly severe impacts of climate change, but is also caused by the construction of flood defences in cities located
upstream from Vac in Slovakia, Austria and Germany, which in turn intensifies flooding in Vac (Mabey et al., 2014).
The Dutch river region manages the flood risk in a regional approach with more than 30 projects distributed over the region
that work together to reduce the flood risk (EEA, 2014; Ruimte voor de Rivier, no date).
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