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Environmental information systems
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Objective(s)
The Thermal Assessment Tool is designed to provide a user-friendly visualization of past, present and future extreme heat episodes (heatwaves) in European regions and cities to raise awareness and better support heat risk assessment.
Short description
The tool provides customized visualisations to show the magnitude of extreme heatwave events in Europe based on different risk levels “warning”, “alert”, “alarm” that are based on the severity of the potential impacts. The analysis is conducted under current and future climate conditions, considering the intermediate (Representative Concentration Pathway RCP4.5) and very high (RCP8.5) emissions scenarios. The information is provided at various regional scales, including municipality, province, and region levels.
This information can be integrated into policy and planning processes and documents (e.g. Sustainable Energy and Climate Action Plans (SECAPs) or Climate Adaptation Plans) or used to assess health impacts or energy consumption patterns.
Free keywords
Heatwaves, observations, Copernicus, risks, climate service
Readiness for use
Applications
The tool was used in 2022 in Lombardia, La Rioja, Pomorskie, Oslo og Viken, Southern Irland and Attica and their respective provinces and municipalities to gather information on past heatwaves and future projections. It has been used in Logroño to refine its Sustainable Energy and Climate Action Plan and the General Master Plan. It used to raise awareness on heatwaves impacts via its integration in the Logroño, Milano and Athens climate stories.
In addition, two public datasets have been created for the whole of continental Europe, using Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) downloads from the Copernicus Climate Data Store (CDS), providing data regarding the frequency and severity of heatwaves under past, current and future climate (1891-2100) derived from observations and reanalysis.
Strengths and weaknesses, comparative added value to other similar tools
Strengths:
(+) Easy-to-use interface and self-explanatory visualizations that allow non-expert users to understand the outputs.
(+) It is based on public, independent and authoritative observational data available for the whole of Europe.
(+) Better understanding of land and space uses during heat episodes in summer.
Weaknesses:
(-) The definition/threshold for a heatwave in specific countries may differ from the definition used in the tool (based on percentiles). However, this could be easily tailored and implemented for specific region’s needs.
Integration:
The tool works particularly well in combination with other vulnerability assessment tools to assess and visualize heatwave risks. Its outcomes can also be integrated with other tools to support effective locations for interventions. It is connected to other tools and frameworks through the REACHOUT toolkit.
Input(s)
The tool uses as inputs public, independent and authoritative Copernicus Climate Change Service(C3S) data, homogeneous across the EU. The input variables used are maximum and minimum daily temperatures: the historical (daily gridded land-only observational) data of the e-OBS and future projections of the EURO-CORDEX dataset, considering the intermediate (RCP4.5) and very high (RCP8.5) emissions scenarios. All the data was downloaded from the Copernicus Climate Data Store (CDS).
The data are already integrated in the tool, users don’t have to upload any data. Please see below the options for replicating the tool in other regions.
Output(s)
The tool produces interactive plots and statistics that allow a better understanding of the heatwaves characteristics (maximum temperature, duration, intensity) over the last 43 years (1981-2023) and how these specific characteristics of heat waves will evolve in the coming decades:
- How frequent will these extreme events be?
- How many days longer will these events be?
- How much overheating could they induce during the day and/or at night?
Replicability: Cost/effort for (new) usage
Please contact Tecnalia if you are interested in using the tool for another than the 7 already developed regions. Tecnalia offers the service to use the tool for other regions with two options:
(1) Following the same methodological approach and heatwave model. The estimated effort is 7 person-days (2 days to generate the new datasets at regional/municipality level + 3 days to integrate the data in the tool + 2 days for validation meetings with the region).
(2) Implement a new heatwave model with different thresholds, indicators or risk levels. The work effort is estimated in 21 person-days, considering the above-mentioned effort + the update of the implementation module. The tool can be tailored by Tecnalia considering different regional or local requirements.
Materials or other support available
The graphical interface provides information to guide the use of the tool Thermal Assessment Tool. A user guide video will also be implemented as part of its development by end of 2024.
Website and maintenance
The tool is available at https://thermal-assessment.urban.tecnalia.dev/ and it is also available as part of the EU REACHOUT Toolkit: https://reachout-cities.eu/triple-a-toolkit/ providing complementary information on other useful tools that can complement this climate service.
Contact
Associated project(s)
REACHOUT project. This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 101036599.
Step 2 is the primary RAST step supported by this tool.
The tool offers a selectable regional map for EU regions for which the heatwave information is available. The user can zoom in and zoom out to select NUTS2, NUTS3 or local administration units.
Geographical area
The tool covers now 7 European regions (Lombardia, La Rioja, Pomorskie, Oslo og Viken, Southern Irland and Attica). It can be activated as service for all other continental regions; see for more details below.
Extreme heat
Local governments and other decision-makers, as well as actors in housing development and management, urban planning, and insurance, can add the tool to their usual information systems with additional quality-assured insights. It can also be used by climate change researchers, stakeholders or citizens to raise awareness of heat-related impacts.
No additional preparation.
The tool has an easy-to-use interface and self-explanatory plots allowing non-expert users to understand its outputs.
Disclaimer
The contents and links to third-party items on this Mission webpage are developed by the MIP4Adapt team led by Ricardo, under contract CINEA/2022/OP/0013/SI2.884597 funded by the European Union and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union, CINEA, or those of the European Environment Agency (EEA) as host of the Climate-ADAPT Platform. Neither the European Union nor CINEA nor the EEA accepts responsibility or liability arising out of or in connection with the information on these pages.
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Exclusion of liability
This translation is generated by eTranslation, a machine translation tool provided by the European Commission.