Climate Change Effects on Heat- and Cold-Related Mortality in the Netherlands: A Scenario-Based Integrated Environmental Health Impact Assessment

Abstract

Although people will most likely adjust to warmer temperatures, it is still difficult to assess what this adaptation will look like. This scenario-based integrated health impacts assessment explores baseline (1981–2010) and future (2050) population attributable fractions (PAF) of mortality due to heat (PAFheat) and cold (PAFcold), by combining observed temperature–mortality relationships with the Dutch KNMI’14 climate scenarios and three adaptation scenarios. The 2050 model results without adaptation reveal a decrease in PAFcold (8.90% at baseline; 6.56%–7.85% in 2050) that outweighs the increase in PAFheat (1.15% at baseline; 1.66%–2.52% in 2050). When the 2050 model runs applying the different adaptation scenarios are considered as well, however, the PAFheat ranges between 0.94% and 2.52% and the PAFcold between 6.56% and 9.85%. Hence, PAFheat and PAFcold can decrease as well as increase in view of climate change (depending on the adaptation scenario). The associated annual mortality burdens in 2050—accounting for both the increasing temperatures and mortality trend—show that heat-related deaths will range between 1879 and 5061 (1511 at baseline) and cold-related deaths between 13,149 and 19,753 (11,727 at baseline). Our results clearly illustrate that model outcomes are not only highly dependent on climate scenarios, but also on adaptation assumptions. Hence, a better understanding of (the impact of various) plausible adaptation scenarios is required to advance future integrated health impact assessments.

Impact of climate and population change on temperature-related mortality burden in Bavaria, Germany

“…With the projected increase in the average surface temperature of the earth, we expected to see a decrease in overall cold-related mortality. A number of previous studies have already shown a decrease in future cold-related mortality [8,[17][18][19][20]. One of the studies found cold-related mortality to decrease by 8.9% by 2050 s at a scenario of constant population [18].…”

“…Several studies also show an increasing impact of climate change on heat-related cause-specific mortality burden, such as cardiovascular and respiratory causes [15,16]. Yet, with increasing temperatures and assuming no adaptation of the future population, cold-related mortality burden will decrease in the future [8,[17][18][19][20]. Thus, heat-related mortality might be outnumbered by the reduction in cold-related mortality, resulting in a decrease of the net temperature-related mortality [8].…”

“…both heat and cold-related mortality burden in different locations of the world [3,8,18,[20][21][22][23]. Most of the studies so far have incorporated only the climate change scenarios [3,8,18,20,21,23] and only a few have considered the range of possible future population scenarios [22]. Furthermore, only a limited number of these studies have incorporated age-specific exposureresponse curves for future mortality projection [3,20,22,23].…”

Projected temperature-related deaths in ten large U.S. metropolitan areas under different climate change scenarios

“…Accordingly, several studies project substantial increases in heat-related morbidity and mortality if today’s population were exposed to the higher temperatures projected through the end of the century, holding all other factors constant (Kingsley et al 2016, Knowlton et al 2007, Ostro et al 2012, Peng et al 2011). However, given the generally U-shaped exposure-response function between daily temperature and mortality, changes in temperature projected through the end of century may simultaneously lead to lower rates of cold-related mortality (Guo et al 2016, Huynen and Martens 2015, Li et al 2013, Vardoulakis et al 2014,). The relative magnitude of these changes, as well as the sign of the net change in temperature-related mortality under temperatures projected for the future, will depend on many factors that vary by location.…”

“…For example, Schwartz et al (2015) estimated that most US regions would experience a net increase in temperature-related mortality due to projected temperature changes. Such analyses have also been carried out in the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, and the Netherlands (Guo et al 2016, Hajat et al 2014, Huynen and Martens 2015, Martin et al 2012, Vardoulakis et al 2014). However, building resilience against climatic effects (i.e., adaptation) depends on action by local policymakers and government officials, and prior studies have typically provided an incomplete description of the potential burden of mortality attributable to temperature changes needed for action at the local level.…”