Weather hazards and vulnerabilities for the European transport system - a risk panorama: EWENT project D5.1

This deliverable of EWENT project estimates the risks of extreme weather on European transport system. The main object of work package 5 in EWENT project was to perform a risk analysis based on impact and probability assessments carried out in earlier work packages (WP2-WP3). The results of WP 5 can be used as a starting point when deciding on the risk reduction measures, strategies and policies in the European Union. This deliverable also serves as a background material for the synthesis report (named shortly as Risk Panorama), which will summarise the findings of risk assessment and previous work packages. The methodological approach of EWENT is based on the generic risk management standard (IEC 60300-3-9) and starts with the identification of hazardous extreme weather phenomena, followed by an impact assessment and concluded by mitigation and risk control measures. This report pools the information from EWENT's earlier work packages, such as risk identification and estimation, into a 'risk panorama' and provides a holistic picture on the risks of extreme weather in different parts of Europe and EU transport network. The risk assessment is based on the definition of transport systems' vulnerability to extreme weather events in different countries and on calculations of the most probable causal chains, starting from adverse weather phenomena and ending up with events that pose harmful consequences to the transport systems in different climate regions. The latter part, the probabilistic section, is the hazard analysis. The vulnerability of a particular mode in a particular country is a function of exposure (indicated by transport or freight volumes and population density), susceptibility (infrastructure quality index, indicating overall resilience) and coping capacity (measured by GDP per capita). Hence, we define the extreme weather risk as Risk = hazard * vulnerability = P(negative consequences) * V[f(exposure, susceptibility, coping capacity)] Based on this analytical approach, risk indicators for each mode and country are presented. Due to the techniques used in calculations, the risk indicator is by definition a relative indicator, and must not be considered as an absolute measure of risk. It is a very robust ranking system, first and foremost. Country-specific vulnerability indicators and hazard indicators following the climatological division are also presented. In general, countries with poor quality infrastructures combined with high transport volumes and population densities are naturally at most risk.