AIT Austrian Institute of Technology, Foresight & Policy Development Department, Donau-City-Str. 1, A-1220 Vienna, Austria.
Environ Int. 2013 Jun;56:65-77. doi: 10.1016/j.envint.2013.03.005. Epub 2013 Apr 17.
The increase in the number and severity of weather extremes (including excessive heat) potentially associated with climate change has highlighted the needs for research into risk assessment and risk reduction measures. Extreme heat events, the focus of this paper, have been consistently reported as the leading cause of weather-related mortality in the United States in recent years. In order to fully understand impact potentials and analyze risk in its individual components both the spatially and temporally varying patterns of heat and the multidimensional characteristics of vulnerability have to be considered. In this paper we present a composite index aggregating these factors to assess heat related risk for the U.S. National Capital Region in 2010. The study reveals how risk patterns are in part driven by the geographic variations of vulnerability, generally showing a clear difference between high-risk urban areas and wide areas of low risk in the suburban and rural environments. This pattern is particularly evident for the core center of the study area around the District of Columbia, which is largely characterized by high index values despite not having experienced the peak of the heat stress as compared to other regions in the metropolitan area. The article aims to set a framework for local-level heat stress risk assessment that can provide valuable input and decision support for climate adaptation planning as well as emergency managers aiming at risk reduction and optimization of resource distribution.
极端天气（包括高温）的数量和严重程度不断增加，与气候变化可能存在关联，这凸显了对风险评估和风险缓解措施进行研究的必要性。本文的重点是极端高温事件，近年来，它们一直是美国与天气相关的死亡人数的主要原因。为了全面了解影响潜力并分析风险的各个组成部分，必须考虑到热量的时空变化模式以及脆弱性的多维特征。在本文中，我们提出了一个综合指数，综合了这些因素，以评估 2010 年美国国家首都地区与热相关的风险。研究表明，风险模式在一定程度上是由脆弱性的地理差异驱动的，一般来说，高风险城市地区与郊区和农村地区的广泛低风险地区之间存在明显差异。这种模式在研究区域的核心区——哥伦比亚特区周围尤为明显，尽管与大都市地区的其他区域相比，该地区没有经历过高温压力的峰值，但指数值却很高。本文旨在为地方一级的热应激风险评估建立一个框架，为气候适应规划以及旨在降低风险和优化资源分配的应急管理人员提供有价值的输入和决策支持。
