Insurance is of paramount importance when needing to adapt to the current and future risks of climate change and its consequences (often consisting in natural catastrophes and extreme hydrometeorological phenomena), which directly affect the activity of the insurance sector. The latter is forced to take measures to assess the change in the covered risks and seek solutions that allow reducing damage and increasing the resilience of society, even when the latter also plays a fundamental role in their mitigation.

Losses and damages related to urban flooding and storms are likely to increase due to climate change. The insurance industry can potentially play a key role in climate change adaptation by contributing to the understanding of risks associated with climate change. By sharing data on the location of insurance claims associated with extreme rainfall or storms, the insurance industry can enable better-informed adaptation planning and risk management.

Rail transport plays an important role in in Slovakia, providing 35.6% of the total volume of passenger transport and 19.0% of freight transport in 2017. The main railway corridor, which connects the cities of Bratislava, Žilina and Košice, part of the trans-European TEN-T transport system and Rail Freight Corridor 9 (Eastern Corridor, RFC 9), is currently being modernized with the support from the European financial instruments.

In response to flooding causing damage in Smolyan’s Ustovo neighbourhood in 2005, the city implemented a number of flood protection measures that presumably have paid off already during the wet year of 2014. Under the project, river banks were widened, existing protection walls were reinforced and new walls constructed. The cost of about 480,000 EUR was mainly derived from funding by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF).

Forests can provide effective protection against rockfalls, landslides and avalanches; their preservation and proper management can maintain these services and functions which assume relevance also in the perspective of adaptation to current extreme events and future climate changes. The Protect Bio method enables the evaluation of these ecosystem services. The method aims to evaluate if technical protective (and expensive) measures (i.e.

The railway transportation system of the Alpine country Austria plays an important role in the European transit of passengers and freights. Moreover, the Austrian railway network is essential for the accessibility of lateral alpine valleys and is thus of crucial importance for their economic and societal welfare. If traffic networks are (temporarily) disrupted, alternative options for transportation are rarely available.

Settlements, infrastructure, land use and road connections in the Grimsel area in southern Switzerland are heavily exposed to risks from hydrological and gravitational natural hazard processes, such as rock fall, mudflows, landslides, avalanches, and floods favoured by sedimentation of debris. Permafrost thawing, glacier retreat, and more frequent heavy rainfall events due to climate change are expected to further decrease slope stability and increase likelihood of mass movements.

Hydropower is an essential part of the energy mix in France, accounting for around 20% of installed capacity. Climate change is projected to increase the frequency and intensity of extreme precipitation events and to accelerate snowmelt, which would result in increased flood risk. Flooding can adversely affect dams causing overtopping, outages, damage to equipment and adverse downstream impacts. It is essential that dam operators take these risks into consideration and implement adaptation measures as needed.

The densely populated River Lavant valley region in the eastern part of Carinthia in the southern Austrian Alps is characterised by a low level of precipitation, geological conditions unfavourable to groundwater storage and a limited number of springs that can be used for water supply. In the past decades, annual precipitation amounts have declined significantly, and the region has been affected by water shortages during hot summers several times.

Evidence that increasing temperatures leads to increased mortality and morbidity is well documented, with population vulnerability being location specific. Especially the 2003 heat wave in Europe raised the awareness of negative impacts of heat stress on human health in Austria. Increased incidence of heat waves leads to an increase in heat stress, especially in urban areas; the intensification of the heat-island effect is to be expected.