Climate change, impacts and vulnerability in Europe ... - MemoFin.fr

Climate impacts on socio-economic systems and healthcurrently fragmentary and heterogeneous. All thesefactors make it difficult to identify significant trendsin climate-sensitive health outcomes over time, andto compare them across regions. In the absenceof reliable time series, more complex approachesare often used to assess the past, current or futureimpacts of climate change on human health.The links between climate change and health arethe subject of intense research in Europe (e.g. theprojects cCASHh ( 57 ), EDEN ( 58 ), EDENext ( 59 ), andClimate-TRAP ( 60 )). Furthermore, the EuropeanCentre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC)and the World Health Organization (WHO) performcrucial work in this area.The ECDC has numerous projects investigating thelinks between climate change and communicablediseases. It has developed the EuropeanEnvironment and Epidemiology (E3) networkwhich will promote geospatial infectious diseasemodelling in Europe. Additionally, ECDC hasmultiple ongoing projects assessing the impact ofclimate change on food-, water-, and vector-bornedisease transmission in Europe, and ECDC has alsoestablished a pan-European network dedicated tovector surveillance, VBORNET.The WHO Regional Office for Europe works onclimate change and health since 1997. The activitiesinclude the assessment of the health effects, thedevelopment of measures to protect populationhealth from climate change and to integrate health inclimate change related policies. WHO has developednumerous tools and methods, monitors trends overtime and advocates evidence based solutions. Inthe context of the climate environment and healthinformation system sixteen indicators help tomonitor trends over time at the national level. WHOguides research and development on data collection,analysis and future scenarios.Data availability — the case of databases fornatural disastersCurrently, worldwide databases for naturaldisasters, such as EM-DAT/CRED ( 61 ), theDartmouth Flood Observatory ( 62 ) (DFO), orNatCatSERVICE of Munich RE ( 63 ) are available forEurope-wide studies. The databases are compiledfrom various sources; the definitions, thresholds,classification criteria, reporting approaches, etc.differ and need to be considered when applying andinterpreting the data. In general, larger disasters arecaptured well in the databases, while they are lessaccurate for smaller events, which still may have asignificant impact (WHO and HPA, Forthcoming). Inorder to be included in EM-DAT, a disaster needs tomeet one of the following criteria: 10 or more peoplereported killed, a hundred or more people reportedaffected, declaration of a state of emergency, or callfor international assistance. The criteria for defininga flood are 'a significant rise of water level in astream, lake, reservoir or coastal region' and includegeneral river floods, flash floods and storm surgesor coastal flooding (Below et al., 2009). The DFOincludes only floods that appear to be 'large', basedon a significant damage to structures or agriculture,long reported intervals (decades) since the lastsimilar event, and/or fatalities; it is not specificallydefined what constitutes a flood, but it does considerthe main cause of the flood. The DFO is likely tocapture more flood events than EM-DAT, as anylarge flood event is recorded as a flood, whereasEM-DAT may classify it as another type of disaster;(tropical) storms are only included in case they alsocause flooding.Multiple counting may occur in the case ofevents affecting several countries. An importantconsideration is the increased reporting of eventsover the past few decades. Therefore, an analysis ofthe information over time may reveal an increasedue mostly to improvements in data collection.Furthermore, different information sources, anduse of a range of different assessment methodsand rationales, may further increase uncertaintyregarding attribution of impacts (i.e. casualties,losses, etc.) associated with each event.( 57 ) cCASHh — Climate change and adaptation strategies for human health in Europe — the EC FP5 project (http://ec.europa.eu/research/environment/pdf/env_health_projects/climate_change/cl-ccashh.pdf).( 58 ) EDEN — Emerging Diseases in a changing European eNvironment — the EC FP6 project (http://www.eden-fp6project.net/).( 59 ) EDENext — Biology and control of vector-borne infections in Europe — the EC FP7 project (http://www.edenext.eu/).( 60 ) Climate-TRAP – Training, Adaptation, Preparedness of the Health Care System to Climate Change (http://www.climatetrap.eu/).( 61 ) See http://www.emdat.be/.( 62 ) See http://floodobservatory.colorado.edu/.( 63 ) See http://www.munichre.com/en/reinsurance/business/non-life/georisks/natcatservice/default.aspx.Climate change, impacts and vulnerability in Europe 2012185