Social Impacts: Integrating dynamic social vulnerability in impact-based weather forecasting

Abstract

International audienceWhat is the role of human exposure and vulnerability in weather-related disasters? Direct exposure of human beings to changing weather patterns or to their indirect effects such as changes in water, food, livelihoods and infrastructures can cause major social impacts in terms of death, disability and suffering. According to the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC, 2012), extreme weather hazards become weather disasters when threatening the normal functioning of a community or a society 'due to hazardous physical events interacting with vulnerable social conditions, leading to widespread adverse human, material, economic, or environmental effects that require immediate emergency response'. The last 20 years, unexpected or unusual severe weather has been associated with more than 12,000 extreme weather events leading to catastrophic naturals disasters such as storms, floods and heatwaves worldwide (Eckstein et al., 2020). In their latest report-the 15th edition of the Germanwatch Global Climate Risk Index-, Eckstein et al. (2020) estimate about 500,000 deaths as a direct result of those weather hazards between 1999 and 2018. If social impacts refer to a broad spectrum of disruptions, damages, and human health issues, this chapter will specifically deal with direct adverse human consequences which are the main reason for developing forecasting capabilities and early warning systems. In the present chapter, the terms human risk or human impacts may be used interchangeably, with a focus on the likelihood of loss of life during weather crisis. In particular, we address social impacts from extreme weather types discussed in Chapter 2 by Nikolopoulos and Astitha (ref to this book) (e.g., heavy rainfall), not mentioning impacts from slow-onset weather and climate processes such as rising temperatures, ice melting and sea-level rise that have been largely associated with important disruptions on ecosystems, transformations in biodiversity and agriculture, and degradation of coastal environments