Abstract
Climate change will bring about a sea change in environmental conditions worldwide during the 21th century. In particular, most of the extreme events and natural disaster regimes prevailing today will be transformed, thus exposing innumerable natural and socio-economic systems to novel risks that will be difficult to cope with. This crucial component of vulnerability to anthropogenic interference with the climate system is analyzed using powerful pattern recognition methods from statistical physics. The analysis is of intermediate character, with respect to spatial scale and complexity level respectively, and therefore allows a rapid regional assessment for any area of interest. The approach is based on a comprehensive inventory of all those ecological and socioeconomic assets in a region that are significantly sensitive to extreme weather (and climate) events. Advanced cluster analysis techniques are then employed to derive from the inventory a set of thematic maps that succinctly summarize – and visualize – the differential vulnerabilities characteristic of the area in question. This information can prepare decision makers and the general public for the climate change hazards to be faced and facilitates a precautionary climate change risk management. The semiquantitative methodology described and applied here can be easily extended to other aspects of climate change assessment.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Adger, W. N., Brooks, N., Bentham, G., Agnew, M., and Eriksen, S.: 2004, ‘New indicators of vulnerability and adaptive capacity’. Technical report no. 7, Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, Norwich, UK.
Aggrawal, P. K. and Mall, R. K.: 2002, ‘Climate change and rice yields in diverse agro-environments of India. II Effect of uncertainties in scenarios and crop models on impact assessment’, Climatic Change 52(3), 331–343.
Ambroise, C., Sèze, G., Badran, F., and Thiria, S.: 2000, ‘Hierarchical clustering of self-organizing maps for cloud classification’, Neurocomputing 30, 47–52.
Andrey, J., Mills, B., Leahy, M., and Suggett, J.: 2003, ‘Weather as a Chronic Hazard for Road Transportation in Canadian Cities’, Natural Hazards 28(2), 319–343.
Arminger, G., Bommert, K., and Bonne, T.: 1996, ‘Einfluss der Witterung auf das Unfallgeschehen im Strassenverkehr’, Allgemeines Statistisches Archiv 80(2), 181–206.
Azar, C. and Schneider, S. H.: 2002, ‘Are the economic costs of stabilising the atmosphere prohibitive?’, Ecological Economics 42(1–2), 73–80.
Bauer, H.-U., Geisel, T., Pawelzik, K., and Wolf, F.: 1996, ‘Selbstorganisierende Karten’, Spektrum der Wissenschaft (4), 38–47.
Bauer, H.-U. and Pawelzik, K. D.: 1992, ‘Quantifying the neighborhood preservation of self-organizing feature maps’. IEEE Transactions on Neural Networks 3(4), 570–579.
Changnon, S. A.: 1996, ‘Effects of summer precipitation on urban transportation’, Climatic Change 32(4), 481–494.
Changnon, S. A. and Hewings, G. J. D.: 2001, ‘Losses from weather extremes in the United States’, Natural Hazards Review 2(3), 113–123.
Changnon, S. A., Pielske jr., R. A., Chagnon, D., Sylves, R. T., and Pulwasty, R.: 2000, ‘Human Factors explain the increased Losses from Weather and Climate Extremes’, Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society 81(3), 437–422.
Covey, C., AchutaRao, K. M., Cubasch, U., Jones, P., Lambert, S. J., Mann, M. E., Phillips, T. J., and Taylor, K. E.: 2003, ‘An Overview of Results from the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP)’, Global and Planetary Change 37(1–2), 103–133.
Cutter, S. L.: 1996, ‘Vulnerability to environmental hazards’, Progress in Human Geography 20, 529–539.
Drouineau, S., Laroussinie, O., Birot, Y., Terrasson, D., Formery, T., and Roman-Amat, B.: 2000, Joint Evaluation of Storms, Forest Vulnerability, and their Restoration. Joensuu: European Forest Institute.
Ecf/Pik (ed.): 2004, ‘What is dangerous climate change? Initial results of a symposium on key vulnerable regions’. European Climate Forum/Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research. http://www.european-climate-forum.net/pdf/ECF_beijing_results.pdf.
Etkin, D.: 1999, Climate Change and Extreme Events, Vol. VIII, pp. 31–80. Downsview: Environment Canada.
Füssel, H.-M. and Klein, R. J. T.: 2005, ‘Climate Change Vulnerability Assessments: An Evolution of Conceptual Thinking’, Climatic Change. forthcoming.
Galea, S. and Vlahov, D.: 2005, ‘Urban health: evidence, challenges, and directions’, Annu. Rev. Public Health 26(doi 10.1146/annurev.publhealth.26.021304.144708), 1–25.
Gersho, A. and Gray, R. M.: 1992, Vector Quantization and Signal Compression. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers.
Grady, P. and Kapsalis, C.: 2002, The Approach to Seasonal Employment in the Nordic Countries: A Comparison with Canada. Quebec: Human Resources Development Canada Publications Centre. ISBN 0-66234082-5.
Hsieh, W. W.: 2001, ‘Nonlinear principal component analysis by neural networks’, Tellus 53A, 599–615.
Hsieh, W. W. and Wu, A.: 2002, ‘Nonlinear multichannel singular spectrum analysis of the tropical Pacific climate variability using a neural network approach’, Journal of Geophysical Research 107, DOI: 10.1029/2001JC000957.
IPCC: 1997, ‘The Regional Impacts of Climate Change. An Assessment of Vulnerability’. Cambridge: Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Cambridge University Press.
Kasperson, J. X., Kasperson, R. E., and Turner II, B. L.: 1996, ‘Regions at Risk. Exploring Environmental Criticality’, Environment 38(10), 4–15, 26–29.
King, D.: 2001, ‘Uses and limitations of socioeconomic indicators of community vulnerability to natural hazards: Data and disasters in Northern Australia’, Natural Hazards 24, 147–156.
Klein, R. J. T., Nicholls, R. J., and Mimura, N.: 1999, ‘Coastal adaptation to climate change: can the IPCC Technical Guidelines be applied?’, Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies for Global Change 4(34), 239–252.
Klinenberg, E.: 2002, Heat Wave: A Social Autopsy of Disaster in Chicago. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Kohonen, T.: 2001, Self-Organizing Maps, Springer Series in Informations Sciences. New York: Springer.
Kropp, J.: 1999, ‘Using topology preserving neural networks for object character recognition of city systems’, International Journal of Systems Research and Information Systems 8, 295–315.
Kropp, J. and Schellnhuber, H. J.: 2005, ‘Prototyping Broad-Scale Climate and Ecosystem Classes by Means of Neural Networks’. In: P. Agarwal and A. Skupin (eds.): Self-Organising Maps: Applications in Geographic Information Sciences. New York, Wiley & Sons, forthcoming.
Kunkel, K. E., Pielke, R. A., and Changnon, S. A.: 1999, ‘Temporal Fluctuations in Weather and Climate Extremes that cause Economic and Human Health Impacts: A Review’, Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society 80(6), 1077–1098.
Lorenzoni, I., Jordan, A., Hulme, M., Turner, R. K., and O'Riordan, T.: 2000, ‘A coevolutionary approach to climate change impact: I Integrating socio-economic and climate change scenarios’, Global Environmental Change 10(1), 57–68.
Marriot, F. H. C.: 1974, The Interpretation of Multiple Observations. London: Academic Press.
McCarthy, J. J., Canziani, O. F., Leary, N. A., Dokken, D. J., and White, K. S. (eds.): 2001, Climate Change 2001: Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability. Cambridge: Cambridge, University Press. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
Morgan, M. G. and Keith, D. W.: 1995, ‘Subjective judgements by climate experts’, Environmental Science & Technology 29, 468A-476A.
MunichRe: 2003, ‘World of Natural Disasters’. Geospecials/Megacities, CD-ROM.
Nakicénovic, N. and Swart, R. (eds.): 2000, Emissions Scenarios, Special Report of Working Group III of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Naughton, M. P., Henderson, A., Mirabelli, M. C., Kaiser, R., Wilhelm, J. L., Kieszak, S. M., Rubin, C. H., and McGeehin, M. A.: 2002, ‘Heat-related mortalility during a 1999 heat wave in Chicago’, American Journal of Preventive Medicine 22(4), 221–227.
Nauta, W. J. H. and Feirtag, M.: 1992, ‘Die Architektur des Gehirns’. In: Gehirn und Nervensystem, Vol. 10. Verlag Harri Deutsch, pp. 88–99, Spektrum der Wissenschaft.
Nordhaus, W.: 1994, Managing the Global Commons: The Economics of Climate Change. Cambridge: MIT Press.
Parson, E. A.: 1995, ‘Integrated Assessment and Environmental Policy Making: In pursuit of usefulness’, Energy Policy 23, 463–475.
Reibnegger, G. and Wachter, H.: 1996, ‘Self-organizing neural networks —an alternative way of cluster analysis in clinical chemistry’, Clinica Chimica Acta 248, 91–98.
Renn, O.: 1992, ‘Concepts of Risk: A Classification’. In: S. Krimsky and D. Golding (eds.): Theories of Risk. Westport, pp. 53–79, Praeger.
Rotmans, J. and Dowlatabadi, H.: 1998, ‘Integrated Assessment Modeling: Human Choice and Climate Change’. In: The Tools for Policy Analysis, Vol. 3. Columbus, pp. 291–377, Batelle Press.
Sammon, J. W.: 1969, ‘A nonlinear mapping for data structure analysis’. IEEE Transactions on Computers C18(5), 401–409.
Schellnhuber, H. J.: 1998, ‘Earth System Analysis: The Scope of the Challenge’. In: H. J. Schellnhuber and V. Wenzel (eds.): Earth System Analysis: Integrating Science for Sustainability. Berlin, Springer Verlag. 3–195.
Schellnhuber, H. J.: 1999, ‘Earth System Analysis and the 2nd Copernican revolution’, Nature pp. 6761–6765.
Schellnhuber, H. J. and Wenzel, V. (eds.): 1998, Earth System Analysis: Integrating Science for Sustainability. Berlin: Springer Verlag.
Schneider, S. H.: 1996, ‘The future of climate: potential for interaction and surprises’. In: NATO ASI Series I Global Environmental Change, Vol. 37. pp. 77–113.
Schneider, S. H.: 1997, ‘Integrated assessment modeling of global climate change: Transparent rational tool for policy making or opaque screen hiding value-laden assumptions?’, Environmental Modeling and Assessment 2(4), 229–249.
Semenza, J. C., Rubin, C. H., and Falter, K. H.: 1996, ‘Heat-Related Deaths During the July 1995 Heat Wave in Chicago’, New England Journal of Medicine 335, 84–90.
Smit, B., Burton, I., Klein, R. J. T., and Wandel, J.: 2000, ‘An anatomy of adaptation to climate change and variability’, Climatic Change 45(1), 223–251.
Smith, J. B., Schellnhuber, H., and Mirza, M. Q.: 2001, Lines of Evidence for Vulnerability to Climate Change: A Synthesis, Chapt. 19, pp. 913-967. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
Subak, S., Palutikof, J. P., Agnew, M. D., Watson, S. J., Bentham, C. G., Cannell, M. G. R., Hulme, M., McNally, S., Thornes, J. E., Waughray, D., and Woods, J. C.: 2000, ‘The impact of the anomalous weather of 1995 on the U.K. economy’, Climatic Change 44, 1–26.
Tòth, F. L. and Hizsnyik, E.: 1998, ‘Environmental Integrated Assessment Methodologies: A survey’, Environmental Modeling and Assessment 3, 193–207.
Trenberth, K. E.: 1999, ‘The Extreme Weather Events of 1997 and 1998’, Consequences 5(1), 3–15.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Kropp, J.p., Block, A., Reusswig, F. et al. Semiquantitative Assessment of Regional Climate Vulnerability: The North-Rhine Westphalia Study. Climatic Change 76, 265–290 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-005-9037-7
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-005-9037-7