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Indicator Specification
A rise in air and water temperature, extreme precipitation events, seasonal changes, storms, droughts and flooding, associated with climate change, can have implications for food- and water-borne diseases in Europe. These climatic events can alter growth rates of pathogens, contaminate drinking, recreational and irrigation water, and disrupt water treatment and sanitation systems. Conversely, potential impacts will be modulated by the quality of food safety measures, the capacity and quality of water treatment systems, human behaviour and a range of other conditions.
High air temperatures can adversely affect food quality during transport, storage and handling. Elevated marine water temperatures accelerate the growth rate of certain pathogens, such asVibriospecies that can cause food-borne outbreaks (seafood). On rare occasions, they may lead to severe necrotic ulcers, septicaemia and death in susceptible individuals exposed during bathing in contaminated marine environments. Floods and increased water flows can lead to the contamination of drinking, recreational or irrigation water and thus can increase the risk of water-borne diseases, such as cryptosporidiosis.
Attributing past trends in these diseases, or individual outbreaks, to climate change is very challenging, owing to data gaps for selected pathogens and climatic determinants. For example, legionnaires’ disease is associated with temperature and vapour pressure but not with climate change per se.
In April 2013, the European Commission (EC) presented the EU Adaptation Strategy Package. This package consists of the EU Strategy on adaptation to climate change (COM/2013/216 final) and a number of supporting documents. The overall aim of the EU Adaptation Strategy is to contribute to a more climate-resilient Europe.
One of the objectives of the EU Adaptation Strategy is Better informed decision-making, which will be achieved by bridging the knowledge gap and further developing the European climate adaptation platform (Climate-ADAPT) as the ‘one-stop shop’ for adaptation information in Europe. Climate-ADAPT has been developed jointly by the EC and the EEA to share knowledge on (1) observed and projected climate change and its impacts on environmental and social systems and on human health, (2) relevant research, (3) EU, transnational, national and subnational adaptation strategies and plans, and (4) adaptation case studies.
Further objectives include Promoting adaptation in key vulnerable sectors through climate-proofing EU sector policies and Promoting action by Member States. Most EU Member States have already adopted national adaptation strategies and many have also prepared action plans on climate change adaptation. The EC also supports adaptation in cities through the Covenant of Mayors for Climate and Energy initiative.
In September 2016, the EC presented an indicative roadmap for the evaluation of the EU Adaptation Strategy by 2018.
In November 2013, the European Parliament and the European Council adopted the 7th EU Environment Action Programme (7th EAP) to 2020, ‘Living well, within the limits of our planet’. The 7th EAP is intended to help guide EU action on environment and climate change up to and beyond 2020. It highlights that ‘Action to mitigate and adapt to climate change will increase the resilience of the Union’s economy and society, while stimulating innovation and protecting the Union’s natural resources.’ Consequently, several priority objectives of the 7th EAP refer to climate change adaptation.
No targets have been specified.
Epidemiological data for Baltic Sea Vibrio cases were collected from a variety of sources.
Associations between epidemiological data on the emergence and dynamics of Vibrio disease and sea surface temperature (SST) records were examined and extrapolated to future SST projections.
Not applicable
No methodology references available.
See under "Methodology".
The attribution of health effects to climate change is difficult owing to the complexity of interactions and the potential modifying effects of a range of other factors (such as land-use changes, public health preparedness and socio-economic conditions). Criteria for defining a climate-sensitive health impact are not always well identified, and their detection sometimes relies on complex observational or prospective studies, applying a mix of epidemiological, statistical and/or modelling methodologies. Furthermore, these criteria, as well as the completeness and reliability of observations, may differ between regions and/or institutions, and they may change over time. Data availability and quality are crucial in climate change and human health assessments, both for longer term changes in climate-sensitive health outcomes and for health impacts of extreme events. The monitoring of climate-sensitive health effects is currently fragmentary and heterogeneous. All these factors make it difficult to identify significant trends in climate-sensitive health outcomes over time, and to compare them across regions. In the absence of reliable time series, more complex approaches are often used to assess the past, current and future impacts of climate change on human health.
The links between climate change and health have been the subject of intense research in Europe in the early 2000s (e.g. the projects cCASHh, EDEN, EDENext and Climate-TRAP); more recently health has been incorporated, to a minor extent, into some cross-sectorial projects (e.g. CIRCE, PESETA II, IMPACT2C and RAMSES). Furthermore, the World Health Organization (WHO) has a policy, country support and research mandate given by its 193 Member States through the World Health Assembly on all aspects of climate change and health The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) assesses the effects of climate change on infectious diseases and has also established a pan-EU network dedicated to vector surveillance (VBORNET).
No uncertainty has been specified
Work specified here requires to be completed within 1 year from now.
Work specified here will require more than 1 year (from now) to be completed.
For references, please go to https://www.eea.europa.eu/data-and-maps/indicators/water-and-food-borne-diseases-1 or scan the QR code.
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