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Abstract:The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), 2014, suggests that an important increase in frequency and magnitude of hazardous processes related to climate change is to be expected at the global scale. Consequently, it is necessary to improve the level of preparedness and the level of public awareness, to fill institutional gaps, and to improve territorial planning in order to reduce the potentially disastrous impact of natural hazards related to climate change. This paper mainly presents a new framework for risk assessment and mapping which enables countries with limited data sources to assess their risk to climate change related hazards at the local level, in order to reduce potential costs, to develop risk reduction strategies, to harmonize their preparedness efforts with neighboring countries and to deal with trans-boundary risk. The methodology is based on the European Commission's "Risk Assessment and Mapping Guidelines for Disaster Management" (2010) and considers local restrictions, such as a lack of documentation of historic disastrous events, spatial and other relevant data, offering alternative options for risk assessment, and the production of risk maps. The methodology is based on event tree analysis. It was developed within the European project SEERISK and adapted for a number of climate change-related hazards including floods, heat waves, wildfires, and storms. Additionally, the framework offers the possibility for risk assessment under different future scenarios. The implications for climate change adaptation policy are discussed.

Assessment of risk considering both the probability of occurrence of a natural phenomenon and its consequences on the elements at risk is an essential step before the design of adequate risk reduction strategies in local, regional or national level. Within the EU-funded project SEERISK ''Joint disaster management risk assessment and preparedness for the Danube macro-region'', a common methodology for risk assessment and mapping for climate change-related hazards has been developed. Vulnerability assessment is a large part of the risk assessment procedure, and it requires a considerable amount of detailed data. The methodology for risk assessment presented here is in line with the EC Guidelines for Risk Assessment and Mapping, and it provides alternatives in order to tackle the problem of varying data quality and quantity necessary for the analysis of hazard and vulnerability. In the present study, the methodology is adapted for heat waves and is applied in the city of Arad, Romania. Based on data regarding surface temperatures and emergency services interventions from past events during the daytime and the night-time, two hazard and two impact maps were developed, respectively, as well as a risk matrix for the night-and the daytime. A heat wave risk map was then developed that can be used by the emergency planners and services in order to prioritise their actions and focus on the hotspots as far as potential victims are concerned. The results of the case study apart from providing a tool for decision-makers and emergency planers also demonstrate the applicability of the common risk assessment methodology developed as being a profound theoretical basis for distinct risk-mapping exercises.

Assessments of natural hazards and risks are beneficial for sustainable planning and natural hazard risk management. On a regional scale, quantitative hazard and risk assessments are data intensive and methods developed are difficult to transfer to other regions and to analyse different periods in a given region. Such transfers could be beneficial regarding factors of global change influencing the patterns of natural hazard and risk. The aim of this study was to show the landslide exposure of different elements at risk in one map, e.g. residential buildings and critical infrastructure, as a solid basis for an in-depth analysis of vulnerability and consequent risk. This enables to overcome the data intensive assessments on a regional scale and highlights the potential hotspots for risk analysis. The study area is located in the alpine foreland in Lower Austria and comprises around 112 km 2 . The results show the different levels of exposure, as well as how many layers of elements at risk are affected. Several exposure hotspots can be delineated throughout the study area. This allows a decision on in-depth analysis of hotspots not only by indicated locations but also by a rank resulting from the different layers of incorporated elements at risk.