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

Climate impacts on socio-economic systems and health4.4.2 Extreme weather events and health —an overviewRelevanceExtreme weather events, such as heat waves andwindstorms (see Section 2.2), floods and droughts(see Section 3.3), and storm surges (see Section 3.2.3)have impacts on human health (Kirch et al., 2005;Confalonieri et al., 2007; EEA, 2011a). However,human vulnerability to extreme weather events isdetermined by a complex set of factors.Evidence suggests that globally, climate changehas led to changes in climate extremes, includingheat waves, record high temperatures and, inmany regions, heavy precipitation in the past halfcentury. If vulnerable populations are exposed tosuch climate extremes, or a series thereof, this canlead to climate-related disasters with substantialhealth impacts (IPCC, 2012) ( 64 ). There are regionaldifferences in observed changes; for example,while there is high confidence that heat wavesbecome more severe in southern Europe and theMediterranean, there is less confidence in thesignificance of the observed trend in central andnorthern Europe.Past trendsAccording to the EM-DAT international disasterdatabase ( 65 ), heat waves were the deadliest extremeweather events in 1980–2011 in Europe, particularlyin southern and western Europe. Cold events andstorms were the deadliest weather extremes ineastern Europe and in northern Europe, respectively.Floods and wet mass movements, includinglandslides, were linked to the highest death ratesin southern and eastern Europe, wildfires insouthern Europe, while the deadliest storms werereported in northern and western Europe (Table 4.2).However, the comparability of the data over timeis very limited (see above under 'Data needs anduncertainty'). Furthermore, the interpretation of thetime series can be dominated by a single extremeevent, such as a heat wave of the summer 2003, withover 70 000 excess deaths (June–September 2003)in southern and western Europe. Also in case offlood-related fatalities, the overall number of deathsdepends strongly on single events.The number of reported climate-related disastersin Europe has increased between 1980 and 2011(Figure 4.6). However, such figures also need to beinterpreted with caution. As concluded in a recentTable 4.2Number of people killed due to extreme weather events and wildfire by Europeanregion (1980–2011)Flood andwet massmovement ( a )Cold event Heat wave Storm WildfireEastern Europe 0.81 2.36 1.15 0.17 0.05Northern Europe 0.10 0.12 0.34 0.41 0.00Southern Europe 1.23 0.13 21.00 0.21 0.15Western Europe 0.27 0.06 18.76 0.37 0.02Total 2.41 2.68 41.24 1.16 0.22Note:( a ) including landslides.Numbers are per 10 000 people. Country grouping, as reported to EM-DAT/CRED: eastern Europe: Bulgaria, the CzechRepublic, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Slovakia; northern Europe: Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Iceland, Ireland, Latvia,Lithuania, Norway, Sweden, the United Kingdom; southern Europe and Western Asia: Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina,Croatia, Cyprus, Greece, Italy, former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Montenegro, Portugal, Serbia, Slovenia, Spain,Turkey; western Europe: Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Switzerland.Population rates calculated using population data from 2010.Source: EM-DAT; Eurostat; World Bank.( 64 ) Note that the term 'vulnerability' is used in this section following its general use in epidemiology and public health, where itdescribes the relationship between exposure to a health hazard and the health effect. This use is closer to the term 'sensitivity' inthe IPCC Fourth Assessment Report. For further discussion of this term, see Section 1.7.( 65 ) See http://www.emdat.be/.186 Climate change, impacts and vulnerability in Europe 2012