Human Health Vulnerability to Summer Heat Extremes in Romanian-Bulgarian Cross-Border Area
Publication: Natural Hazards Review
Volume 22, Issue 2
Abstract
Human health vulnerability (HHV) to different climate change-related phenomena, that is, summer heat extremes, is related to the exposure, sensitivity, and adaptive capacity of the affected entities. The current research is an empirical regional assessment of the human health effects of summer heat extremes in the Romania-Bulgarian Danube floodplain Calafat-Vidin–Turnu Măgurele-Nikopol (CV-TMN) sector. The external biophysical and socioeconomic factors that shape the vulnerability are supported by the climate approach. The research relies on processing meteorological data from the most representative climate stations in the study area based on which some indicators—significant for measuring the impact on human health—were computed (e.g., number of extremely hot days, number of tropical days, number of tropical nights) and integrated into a composite summer heat extremes index (SHEI). To assess HHV to summer heat extremes, the vulnerability framework was completed by the internal socioeconomic factors revealed by the characteristics of the population living in urban and rural settlements in terms of demographic, health provisions, and quality of indoor living spaces. Finally, the authors computed the index of human health vulnerability to summer heat extremes (HHVI) as the Hull Score at the level of territorial local administrative units.
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Data Availability Statement
All data, models, and code generated or used during the study appear in the published article.
Acknowledgments
This paper was carried out in the framework of the EU Romania–Bulgaria Cross Border Cooperation Programme project: “Romanian–Bulgarian cross-border joint natural and technological hazards assessment in the Danube floodplain. The Calafat-Vidin–Turnu Măgurele-Nikopole sector (ROBUHAZ-DUN).” Additionally, some of the research stages were conducted under the “The assessment of the natural and anthropogenic hazards al national, regional and local territorial levels” and “Climate hazard assessment in the Romanian Plain” projects carried out under the research plan of the Institute of Geography, Romanian Academy.
All authors contributed equally to all stages of the article, that is, data acquisition, processing, analysis and interpretation, and study conceptualization.
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Natural Hazards Review
Volume 22 • Issue 2 • May 2021
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© 2021 American Society of Civil Engineers.
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Received: Feb 12, 2020
Accepted: Sep 11, 2020
Published online: Jan 7, 2021
Published in print: May 1, 2021
Discussion open until: Jun 7, 2021
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