TY - JOUR A1 - Heidenreich, Anna A1 - Buchner, Martin A1 - Walz, Ariane A1 - Thieken, Annegret T1 - How to deal with heat stress at an open-air event? BT - Exploring visitors’ vulnerability, risk perception, and adaptive behavior with a multimethod approach JF - Weather, climate & society / American Meteorological Society N2 - Heat waves are increasingly common in many countries across the globe, and also in Germany, where this study is set. Heat poses severe health risks, especially for vulnerable groups such as the elderly and children. This case study explores visitors' behavior and perceptions during six weekends in the summer of 2018 at a 6-month open-air horticultural show. Data from a face-to-face survey (n = 306) and behavioral observations ( n = 2750) were examined by using correlation analyses, ANOVA, and multiple regression analyses. Differences in weather perception, risk awareness, adaptive behavior, and activity level were observed between rainy days (maximum daily temperature, 25 degrees C), warmsummer days (25 degrees-30 degrees C), and hot days (>30 degrees C). Respondents reported a high level of heat risk awareness, butmost (90%) were unaware of actual heat warnings. During hot days, more adaptive measures were reported and observed. Older respondents reported taking the highest number of adaptive measures. We observed the highest level of adaptation in children, but they also showed the highest activity level. From our results we discuss how to facilitate individual adaptation to heat stress at open-air events by taking the heterogeneity of visitors into account. To mitigate negative health outcomes for citizens in the future, we argue for tailored risk communication aimed at vulnerable groups.
SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT: People around the world are facing higher average temperatures. While higher temperatures make open-air events a popular leisure time activity in summer, heat waves are a threat to health and life. Since there is not much research on how visitors of such events perceive different weather conditions-especially hot temperatures-we explored this in our case study in southern Germany at an open-air horticultural show in the summer of 2018. We discovered deficits both in people's awareness of current heat risk and the heat adaptation they carry out themselves. Future research should further investigate risk perception and adaptation behavior of private individuals, whereas event organizers and authorities need to continually focus on risk communication and facilitate individual adaptation of their visitors. KW - Extreme events KW - Adaptation KW - Communications/decision making KW - Emergency KW - preparedness KW - Emergency response KW - Field experiments KW - Societal impacts Y1 - 2021 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1175/WCAS-D-21-0027.1 SN - 1948-8327 SN - 1948-8335 VL - 13 IS - 4 SP - 989 EP - 1002 PB - American Meteorological Soc. CY - Boston ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Koç, Gamze A1 - Natho, Stephanie A1 - Thieken, Annegret T1 - Estimating direct economic impacts of severe flood events in Turkey (2015-2020) JF - International journal of disaster risk reduction : IJDRR N2 - Over the past decades, floods have caused significant financial losses in Turkey, amounting to US$ 800 million between 1960 and 2014. With the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030 (SFDRR), it is aimed to reduce the direct economic loss from disasters in relation to the global gross domestic product (GDP) by 2030. Accordingly, a methodology based on experiences from developing countries was proposed by the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR) to estimate direct economic losses on the macro-scale. Since Turkey also signed the SFDRR, we aimed to adapt, validate and apply the loss estimation model proposed by the UNDRR in Turkey for the first time. To do so, the well-documented flood event in Mersin of 2016 was used to calibrate the damage ratios for the agricultural, commercial and residential sectors, as well as educational facilities. Case studies between 2015 and 2020 with documented losses were further used to validate the model. Finally, model applications provided initial loss estimates for floods occurred recently in Turkey. Despite the limited event documentation for each sector, the calibrated model yielded good results when compared to documented losses. Thus, by implementing the UNDRR method, this study provides an approach to estimate the direct economic losses in Turkey on the macro-scale, which can be used to fill gaps in event databases, support the coordination of financial aid after flood events and facilitate monitoring of the progress toward and achievement of Global Target C of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030. KW - Direct economic loss KW - Flood KW - Turkey KW - Event documentation KW - UNISDR KW - Loss KW - modelling Y1 - 2021 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijdrr.2021.102222 SN - 2212-4209 VL - 58 PB - Elsevier CY - Amsterdam ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Otto, Antje A1 - Göpfert, Christian A1 - Thieken, Annegret T1 - Are cities prepared for climate change? BT - an analysis of adaptation readiness in 104 German cities JF - Mitigation and adaptation strategies for global change : an international journal devoted to scientific, engineering, socio-economic and policy responses to environmental change N2 - Cities can be severely affected by climate change. Hence, many of them have started to develop climate adaptation strategies or implement measures to help prepare for the challenges it will present. This study aims to provide an overview of climate adaptation in 104 German cities. While existing studies on adaptation tracking rely heavily on self-reported data or the mere existence of adaptation plans, we applied the broader concept of adaptation readiness, considering five factors and a total of twelve different indicators, when making our assessments. We clustered the cities depending on the contribution of these factors to the overall adaptation readiness index and grouped them according to their total score and cluster affiliations. This resulted in us identifying four groups of cities. First, a pioneering group comprises twelve (mainly big) cities with more than 500,000 inhabitants, which showed high scores for all five factors of adaptation readiness. Second, a set of 36 active cities, which follow different strategies on how to deal with climate adaptation. Third, a group of 28 cities showed considerably less activity toward climate adaptation, while a fourth set of 28 mostly small cities (with between 50,000 and 99,999 inhabitants) scored the lowest. We consider this final group to be pursuing a 'wait-and-see' approach. Since the city size correlates with the adaptation readiness index, we recommend policymakers introduce funding schemes that focus on supporting small cities, to help them prepare for the impact of a changing climate. KW - Adaptation tracking KW - Adaptation plans KW - Cluster analysis KW - City ranking KW - Urban climate policy KW - Germany Y1 - 2021 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1007/s11027-021-09971-4 SN - 1381-2386 SN - 1573-1596 VL - 26 IS - 8 PB - Springer CY - Dordrecht ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Otto, Antje A1 - Kern, Kristine A1 - Haupt, Wolfgang A1 - Eckersley, Peter A1 - Thieken, Annegret T1 - Ranking local climate policy BT - assessing the mitigation and adaptation activities of 104 German cities JF - Climatic change : an interdisciplinary, international journal devoted to the description, causes and implications of climatic change N2 - Climate mitigation and climate adaptation are crucial tasks for urban areas and can involve synergies as well as trade-offs. However, few studies have examined how mitigation and adaptation efforts relate to each other in a large number of differently sized cities, and therefore we know little about whether forerunners in mitigation are also leading in adaptation or if cities tend to focus on just one policy field. This article develops an internationally applicable approach to rank cities on climate policy that incorporates multiple indicators related to (1) local commitments on mitigation and adaptation, (2) urban mitigation and adaptation plans and (3) climate adaptation and mitigation ambitions. We apply this method to rank 104 differently sized German cities and identify six clusters: climate policy leaders, climate adaptation leaders, climate mitigation leaders, climate policy followers, climate policy latecomers and climate policy laggards. The article seeks explanations for particular cities' positions and shows that coping with climate change in a balanced way on a high level depends on structural factors, in particular city size, the pathways of local climate policies since the 1990s and funding programmes for both climate mitigation and adaptation. N2 - Klimaschutz und Klimaanpassung sind zentrale Aufgaben für Städte und können sowohl Synergien bilden als auch in Konflikt zueinander stehen. Allerdings haben weltweit nur wenige Studien bislang untersucht, wie Klimaschutz und Klimaanpassung in einer großen Anzahl an Städten unterschiedlicher Größe zueinander stehen; für Deutschland wurde dies bisher noch gar nicht unterssucht. Daher ist bisher wenig darüber bekannt, ob Vorreiterstädte im Klimaschutz auch das Feld in der Klimaanpassung anführen oder ob sich Städte eher nur auf eines der beiden Politikthemen fokussieren. Dieser Artikel entwickelt daher einen international anwendbaren Ansatz, um Städte hinsichtlich ihrer Klimapolitik zu bewerten. In diesem Ansatz werden mehrere Indikatoren zusammengeführt, die sich hinsichtlich Klimaschutz und -anpassung auf (1) den lokalen Willen und das Engagement, (2) die veröffentlichten Konzepte und (3) die verfolgten Ambitionen beziehen. Diesen Ansatz wenden wir an, um 104 unterschiedlich große deutsche Städte zu bewerten und identifizieren darauf aufbauend sechs Cluster: Vorreiter in der Klimapolitik, Vorreiter in der Klimaanpassung, Vorreiter im Klimaschutz, Aufsteiger in der Klimapolitik, Nachahmer in der Klimapolitik und Nachzügler in der Klimapolitik. Der Artikel diskutiert Erklärungsansätze für einzelne Städtepositionen und arbeitet heraus, dass eine ausgewogene Klimapolitik auf hohem Niveau von strukturellen Faktoren abhängt. Insbesondere die Stadtgröße, Pfade der lokalen Klimapolitik seit den 1990ern und Förderprogramme für Klimaschutz und Klimaanpassung spielen hierbei eine Rolle. KW - Climate mitigation KW - Climate adaptation KW - Climate policy integration KW - Urban planning KW - City ranking KW - Germany KW - Deutschland KW - Klimaanpassung KW - Klimapolitische Integration KW - Klimaschutz KW - Stadtplanung KW - Stadtranking Y1 - 2021 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-021-03142-9 SN - 0165-0009 SN - 1573-1480 VL - 167 IS - 1-2 PB - Springer CY - Dordrecht ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Samprogna Mohor, Guilherme A1 - Thieken, Annegret A1 - Korup, Oliver T1 - Residential flood loss estimated from Bayesian multilevel models JF - Natural Hazards and Earth System Sciences N2 - Models for the predictions of monetary losses from floods mainly blend data deemed to represent a single flood type and region. Moreover, these approaches largely ignore indicators of preparedness and how predictors may vary between regions and events, challenging the transferability of flood loss models. We use a flood loss database of 1812 German flood-affected households to explore how Bayesian multilevel models can estimate normalised flood damage stratified by event, region, or flood process type. Multilevel models acknowledge natural groups in the data and allow each group to learn from others. We obtain posterior estimates that differ between flood types, with credibly varying influences of water depth, contamination, duration, implementation of property-level precautionary measures, insurance, and previous flood experience; these influences overlap across most events or regions, however. We infer that the underlying damaging processes of distinct flood types deserve further attention. Each reported flood loss and affected region involved mixed flood types, likely explaining the uncertainty in the coefficients. Our results emphasise the need to consider flood types as an important step towards applying flood loss models elsewhere. We argue that failing to do so may unduly generalise the model and systematically bias loss estimations from empirical data. KW - damage KW - insurance KW - Germany KW - transferability KW - preparedness KW - recovery Y1 - 2020 U6 - https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-21-1599-2021 SN - 2195-9269 VL - 21 SP - 1599 EP - 1614 PB - European Geophysical Society CY - Katlenburg-Lindau ER - TY - GEN A1 - Samprogna Mohor, Guilherme A1 - Thieken, Annegret A1 - Korup, Oliver T1 - Residential flood loss estimated from Bayesian multilevel models T2 - Postprints der Universität Potsdam : Mathematisch-Naturwissenschaftliche Reihe N2 - Models for the predictions of monetary losses from floods mainly blend data deemed to represent a single flood type and region. Moreover, these approaches largely ignore indicators of preparedness and how predictors may vary between regions and events, challenging the transferability of flood loss models. We use a flood loss database of 1812 German flood-affected households to explore how Bayesian multilevel models can estimate normalised flood damage stratified by event, region, or flood process type. Multilevel models acknowledge natural groups in the data and allow each group to learn from others. We obtain posterior estimates that differ between flood types, with credibly varying influences of water depth, contamination, duration, implementation of property-level precautionary measures, insurance, and previous flood experience; these influences overlap across most events or regions, however. We infer that the underlying damaging processes of distinct flood types deserve further attention. Each reported flood loss and affected region involved mixed flood types, likely explaining the uncertainty in the coefficients. Our results emphasise the need to consider flood types as an important step towards applying flood loss models elsewhere. We argue that failing to do so may unduly generalise the model and systematically bias loss estimations from empirical data. T3 - Zweitveröffentlichungen der Universität Potsdam : Mathematisch-Naturwissenschaftliche Reihe - 1148 KW - damage KW - insurance KW - Germany KW - transferability KW - preparedness KW - recovery Y1 - 2021 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-517743 SN - 1866-8372 SP - 1599 EP - 1614 ER -