Assessing climate change-related health hazards: An interactive tool for regional risk analysis in Germany

Abstract

An interactive online health risk assessment has been created to visualize the health risks associated with climate change at the district level (NUTS3) across Germany. The tool provides a comprehensive assessment by depicting both the current risk patterns and projected conditions for the mid-21st century. It focuses on six key hazards: heat, flood, air quality, vector-borne diseases, allergens, and forest fires. The underlying methodology integrates weighted hazard and exposure variables and accounts for interdependencies between different hazards. By aggregating individual hazards, the tool also enables the identification of hotspot regions in Germany particularly affected by climate-related health risks. The high-resolution risk analysis serves practitioners and decision-makers as a valuable foundation for targeted and region-specific climate adaptation measures.