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The JRC PESETA IV study shows that ecosystems, people and economies in the EU will face major impacts from climate change if we do not urgently mitigate greenhouse gas emissions or adapt to climate change. The burden of climate change shows a clear north-south divide, with southern regions in Europe much more impacted, through the effects of extreme heat, water scarcity, drought, forest fires and agriculture losses. Limiting global warming to well below 2°C would considerably reduce climate change impacts in Europe. Adaptation to climate change would further minimize unavoidable impacts in a cost-effective manner, with considerable co-benefits from nature-based solutions., JRC.C.6-Economics of Climate Change, Energy and Transport

This report presents an ecosystem assessment covering the total land area of the EU as well as the EU marine regions. The assessment is carried out by Joint Research Centre, European Environment Agency, DG Environment, and the European Topic Centres on Biological Diversity and on Urban, Land and Soil Systems. This report constitutes a knowledge base which can support the evaluation of the 2020 biodiversity targets. It also provides a data foundation for future assessments and policy developments, in particular with respect to the ecosystem restoration agenda for the next decade (2020-2030). The report presents an analysis of the pressures and condition of terrestrial, freshwater and marine ecosystems using a single, comparable methodology based on European data on trends of pressures and condition relative to the policy baseline 2010. The following main conclusions are drawn: - Pressures on ecosystems exhibit different trends. - Land take, atmospheric emissions of air pollutants and critical loads of nitrogen are decreasing but the absolute values of all these pressures remain too high. - Impacts from climate change on ecosystems are increasing. - Invasive alien species of union concern are observed in all ecosystems, but their impact is particularly high in urban ecosystems and grasslands. - Pressures from overfishing activities and marine pollution are still high. - In the long term, air and freshwater quality is improving. - In forests and agroecosystems, which represent over 80% of the EU territory, there are improvements in structural condition indicators (biomass, deadwood, area under organic farming) relative to the baseline year 2010 but some key bio-indicators such as tree-crown defoliation continue to increase. This indicates that ecosystem condition is not improving. - Species-related indicators show no progress or further declines, particularly in agroecosystems. The analysis of trends in ecosystem services concluded that the current potential of ecosystems to deliver timber, protection against floods, crop pollination, and nature-based recreation is equal to or lower than the baseline value for 2010. At the same time, the demand for these services has significantly increased. A lowered potential in combination with a higher demand risks to further decrease the condition of ecosystems and their contribution to human well-being. Despite the wide coverage of environmental legislation in the EU, there are still large gaps in the legal protection of ecosystems. On land, 76% of the area of terrestrial ecosystems, mainly forests, agroecosystems and urban ecosystems, are excluded from a legal designation under the Bird and Habitat Directives. Freshwater and marine ecosystems are subject to specific protection measures under the Water Framework and Marine Strategy Framework Directives. The condition of ecosystems that are under legal designation is unfavourable. More efforts are needed to bend the curve of biodiversity loss and ecosystem degradation and to put ecosystems on a path to recovery. The progress that is made in certain areas such as pollution reduction, increasing air and water quality, increasing share of organic farming, the expansion of forests, and the efforts to maintain marine fish stocks at sustainable levels show that a persistent implementation of policies can be effective. These successes should encourage us to act now and to put forward an ambitious plan for the restoration of Europe’s ecosystems., JRC.D.3-Land Resources

European forests provide a set of fundamental services that contribute to climate change mitigation and human well-being. At the same time, forests are vulnerable systems because the long life-span of trees limits the possibility of rapid adaptation to drastic environmental changes. Climate-driven disturbances in forests, such as fires, windstorms and insect outbreaks, are expected to rise drastically under global warming. As a result, key forest services, such as carbon sequestration and supply of wood materials, could be seriously affected in the near future. Despite the relevance and urgency of the issue, little is known about the vulnerability of European forests to multiple climate-related hazards and the adaptation benefits of alternative forest management strategies. To fill this knowledge gap we investigated the susceptibility of European forests when exposed to a given natural disturbance under different forest management scenarios. For this purpose, we assessed forest vulnerability by integrating in a data-driven framework satellite observations, national forest inventories, land surface climatic data and records of disturbances over the 2000-2017 period. The integration of these data streams is meant to capture the key drivers of vulnerability and to quantify, for the first time, the vulnerability of European forests to fires, windstorms and insect outbreaks in a systematic and spatially explicit manner. We point out that, the term vulnerability is used in this study to express to what degree a forest ecosystem is affected when exposed to a given disturbance. In order to derive risk estimates, vulnerability estimates should be integrated with hazard and exposure components, according to typical impact assessment frameworks. Results of this analyses show that in average at Europe level forest vulnerability to windstorms appears the disturbance with larger biomass loss both in relative and absolute terms (~38%, ~17 t ha-1) compared to fires (~24%, ~12.5 t ha-1) and insect outbreaks (~21%, ~9 t ha-1). Substantial spatial variations in vulnerability emerge and depict generally higher values in norther and Mediterranean regions. Overall, forest structural properties play a larger control on the vulnerability of European forests to natural disturbances compared to climate and landscape features. However, increases in temperature and changes in precipitation patterns occurred over the last two decades, have contributed substantially to make European forests more vulnerable to natural disturbances. We found that these changes in climate led to a limited increase in vulnerability at Europe for fires and windstorms and to a strong increase for insect outbreaks. However, contrasting regional trends emerging over Europe mask relevant temporal changes in vulnerability occurring at local scale. When analyses of single disturbances are combined together, results show that large part of the European forests are substantially vulnerable to at least one natural disturbance and that many of the areas more vulnerable have been subject to an amplification of vulnerability over the observational period due to changes in climate. Reducing tree age and tree density appear effective forest management strategies to reduce the vulnerability of European forests to climate-driven disturbances. The magnitude of the potential benefits appears strongly dependent on local environmental conditions. Previous assessments of future climate risks to European forests, based on catalogues of disturbances collected at country level, have showed that damage from fires, windstorms and insect outbreaks is likely to increase further in coming decades. Such intensification could offset the impact of land-based strategies aiming to increase the forest carbon sink. However, the country scale approach used in such studies do not allow to explore in detail the underlying physical processes and to elaborate adaptation strategies at appropriate local scales. It is therefore fundamental to elaborate new modelling approaches that address in explicit manner the high spatial and temporal variability of forest disturbances. In this respect, machine learning approaches and the increasing availability of multi-platform satellite observations of land surface in combination with high regional climate model simulations, represent valuable opportunities to appraise the impact of forest disturbances at a spatial and temporal resolution relevant for forest management strategies. This explorative study represents a first step towards such integrated framework., JRC.D.1-Bio-economy

Infrastructure systems are the backbone of modern economies, and critical infrastructure resilience is essential to sustainable development. Natural hazards can affect the electricity supply and result in power outages which can trigger accidents, bring economic activity to a halt and hinder emergency response until electricity supply is restored to critical services. The risk environment facing critical infrastructures is complex and in constant flux. This study attempts to elucidate the vulnerability of critical electric infrastructure to storms. First, we discuss the impact of storms on the power grid and outline how certain characteristics of this type of hazard affect the resilience of the power grid based on forensic analysis. Storms can cause widespread damage to the electricity grid. Wind loading and debris impact are the main causes of storm damage. Tall, slender structures, such as transmission towers, distribution poles and wind turbines are most affected. Transmission and distribution assets can also be damaged by the impact of flying debris. Moreover, freezing rain forms glaze ice which accumulates on power lines and increases their catenary load. The added weight can cause the line to break or distribution poles and transmission towers to collapse. Substations were also found to be affected by storms, particularly by inundation and airborne debris. However, damage from flying debris was less compared to that sustained by transmission and distribution lines. Storms in coastal areas may affect transmission and distribution networks by increasing the amount of saltwater deposits on electrical equipment. Given adequate preparedness, early warning can help expedite recovery by allowing TSOs and DSOs to activate disaster response plans, including surge mechanisms and mutual aid agreements, before the storm hits. Second, we present a methodology to investigate the impact of climate change on the risk posed by storms to critical electric infrastructure. Our approach combines a future projection of the recurrence interval of selected storm scenarios and the assessment of the estimated economic losses incurred by critical infrastructure and those resulting from the disruption of daily economic activity. A case study was conducted to demonstrate the methodology in a large urban area in Western Europe. We derived the projected peak wind gust of the 10-, 50- and 100-year storm scenarios for five time periods. For each recurrence interval, the cost to repair the damage to overhead lines and the economic losses from the interruption of the daily economic activity amount each to about half of the total losses. The proportion of the repair cost increases by approximately 10% for the 50-year and the 100-year storms compared to the 10-year scenario. This increase causes the total expected losses from the 50-year and the 100-year storms to rise as well. The duration of the power outage has a major impact on the estimated losses for all scenarios across all time periods. In this case study, the increase of the duration of the power outage from 3 days to 10 days increases the total expected losses 3.5 times. With longer-term power outages, the economic losses caused by interruption of the daily economic activity progressively become the main determinant of the total impact. The scope of this study is limited to demonstrating the feasibility of the methodology and inductively drawing preliminary conclusions regarding the impact of storms on critical infrastructure given climate change conditions. It is not intended to supplement, replace or challenge existing risk assessment and management plans prepared by Member States. The following recommendations emerged from the findings of this study: — Consider increasing transmission tower design requirements for resistance to wind loading in standards and regulations. — Consider the risk from climate change in investment analyses. — Consider events with recurrence intervals longer than 100 years in hazard mitigation and emergency planning. — Standardize mutual aid resources. — Plan for surge capabilities and external contractors., JRC.E.2-Technology Innovation in Security

Windstorms are amongst the most damaging natural hazards in Europe, with approximately 5 €billion of estimated annual losses in the EU. The number of reported windstorms significantly increased over the last decades, yet there is no consensus about a climate-induced trend in windstorms over Europe. Climate model projections of extreme wind are highly uncertain, but they suggest that windstorms will not become more intense or happen more frequent with global warming over most of the European land. As a consequence, it is expected that risks from windstorms in the EU will not rise due to climate change. Future impacts of wind extremes could be reduced by a range of measures, such as the development and implementation of enhanced windstorm-resilient standards and building codes., JRC.E.1-Disaster Risk Management

With this report, the reader finds an overview of the changes, upgrades and new features created in the European Drought Observatory (EDO) and the Global Drought Observatory (GDO) and made in 2019. The year proved relatively quiet concerning drought events in Europe; the subcontinent was only affected in the Baltics, although fires broke out vigorously in the Balkans, Spain and Russia. Thanks to the recent juvenile concern with regard to the heating up of the climate, drought events and forest fires drew more public-attention. Our reaction upon this concern in the Global Drought Observatory is the development of a new group of data, which we call Drought Mitigation. With more people genuinely concerned in the effect of our alternation of the properties of the lower atmosphere, we take up the task to provide guidelines for repair and adaptation. Higher temperatures imply that air depletes more vapour from vegetation and soil, leading to more intense droughts or floods. Consient management of our fresh water resources and massive tree planting are measures that can have significant impact on the effects of a Drought, Forest Fires or also Flood events. Therefore, we started with including the results of the often-cited research result regarding reforestation potential of the Crowther Lab as a layer in the Global Drought Observatory. We completed our work with enriching data describing dams with data regarding the location, name and quantitative characteristics of dams as an additional layer. We worked on the integration of the GRACE Dataset, which gives us an actualized satellite born, insight in the depletion of groundwater resources. We created a new index, alerting drought impacts on protected wetlands. Droughts events in these areas might affect rare species living in these protected wetlands, thus creating a link to the biodiversity crisis. The drought alerting mechanism we developed thus far were human centred. With this new index and with the Crowther Lab reforestation inventory we hope to correct this one species view of the past, learning to share our territory with all species, also during hard times of a drought disaster. With these additions, we hope that EDO and GDO will give you a better overview of the impacts of drought events, not only for our economy but also for our shared ecosystems and their services to us. Finally note that we engage in a project to export EDO and GDO knowledge and software to African regional partners. Thus enabling them to set up drought observatories in Africa just as if we did for South- and Central America. Such a collaboration works both ways, we understand better the impacts of Drought events in their region and we learn from their practical skills with regard to make things work in a challenging environment, whilst we can give them working drought observatory software, practical manners to, almost, fully automate the filling and updating of the systems combined with our specific expertise on droughts build up in the last 12 years., JRC.E.1-Disaster Risk Management

In the context of global warming, droughts are increasingly threatening our societies. They last for months or even years, affecting wide areas and large numbers of people, with single drought events sometimes causing economic damages for several billion Euros. Besides the economic damages, droughts can compromise ecosystems and threat food security in the most vulnerable countries. To reduce drought impacts, drought risk assessments need to be implemented in order to support policy makers and water managers in developing coping strategies and drought management plans. Due to the wide-ranging direct and indirect, often cascading impacts, drought risk assessments need to include information tailored to specific sectors and oriented to the needs of specific users. Drought risk as defined here is the likelihood to incur damages and economic losses during and after a drought and depends on the interactions between three dimensions: 1) the severity and the probability of occurrence of a certain drought event, 2) the exposed assets and/or people, and 3) their intrinsic vulnerability or capacity to cope with the hazard. The characterization of these dimensions and the representation of their interactions over different socio-economic sectors poses several challenges. This document discusses these challenges and proposes a theoretical framework to assess drought risk at global scale in order to provide policy relevant information. Based on the described conceptual approach, the JRC developed the Global Drought Observatory (GDO) as a first operational dynamic drought risk monitor for the entire globe. The report is structured as follows: Firstly, the causes and characteristics of drought events as well as their link with climate variability and climate change are discussed (chapters 1 and 2). Secondly, the concept of drought risk is presented, including a first approach to map drought risk at global scale as a function of hazard, exposure and vulnerability (chapter 3). This framework is then linked to expected impacts in different economic sectors and the environment, including the discussion of case studies from Argentina, South Africa, Syria and the United States (chapter 4). Finally, a brief introduction to the key aspects of drought risk management and an outlook on future challenges and opportunities are presented in chapters 5 and 6., JRC.E.1-Disaster Risk Management

Observational records from 1950 onwards and climate projections for the 21st century provide evidence that droughts are a recurrent climate feature in large parts of Europe, especially in the Mediterranean, but also in western, south-eastern and central Europe. Trends over the past 60 years show an increasing frequency, duration and intensity of droughts in these regions, while a negative trend has been observed in north-eastern Europe. With a changing climate, this tendency is likely to be reinforced during the 21st century, affecting a wide range of socioeconomic sectors. The report provides a detailed description of the characteristics of drought events (i.e. their frequency, duration, intensity, severity) across Europe, and their evolution over the period 1950 to 2012, as well as projections until the end of the 21st century. A pan-European database of meteorological drought events for the period 1950-2012 and of their related sectorial impacts was built and a framework developed that links drought severity to expected damages under present and future climate., JRC.H.7-Climate Risk Management