DG Environment - Climate Adaptation – modelling water scenarios and sectoral impacts (ClimWatAdapt) | Umweltbundesamt

Industry and commerce: "Vulnerability to floods: Next to the people affected by a 100‐year flood, the damages related to the manufacturing sector in terms of manufacturing gross value added (GVA, Figure 40b) are estimated. The 'manufacturing damage' that could be caused by 100‐year floods under the EcF scenario perspectives is given in the right map of Figure 40. The highest damages are expected in the EcF scenario, compared to the other scenarios, because the scenario is globally market‐oriented and quite a lot of money is made by the manufacturing sector. The NUTS‐2 units affected are those where a large part of the area may be affected (e.g., North Sea coastline) or where a lot of manufacturing industries are located, like in France, Northern Italy, Netherlands or Western Germany. Damages are also significant in Serbia and Montenegro." (Flörke et al. 2011: 91)

"However, not only summer skiing is threatened by climate change; winter tourism also has to face significant changes which are likely to cause economic losses. Winter tourism depends on good snow conditions and is highly sensitive to snow‐deficient winters and the length of the skiing season. Climate research findings show that there will be an increase in the number of winters with little snow due to climate change (Elsasser and Bürki 2002, IPCC 2007). In the Alps, for example, snowreliability will rise from 1200 m up to 1800 m over the next few decades (Elsasser and Bürki 2002). Ski resorts at lower altitudes will disappear from the market sooner or later due to the lack of snow. The impact of climate change on winter tourism is probably most severe in countries such as Germany (for example resorts in the Black Forest or in Allgaeu) and Austria, due to the lower altitudes of their ski resorts (Bürki et al. 2003). Hantel et al. (2000) studied climate change impacts on the variation in snow cover duration. The authors found that in snow sensitive regions of Austria the period of snow cover may be reduced by approximately four weeks if temperature increases by 1°C." (Flörke et al. 2011: 81)

"Water availability is especially predicted to decrease in Southern Europe, robustly signalling a decrease in average annual water availability for the Mediterranean countries [...]. For example, 10 or 11 out of 11 model simulations predict reduced water availability for large parts of Spain, Portugal, and Greece. In Northern Europe, water availability is probably increasing, and none of the models project decreasing water availability in most parts of Northern Europe. On the other side, socio‐economic, technological, and behavioural changes drive future water use and thus the amount of water that needs to be abstracted from freshwater resources for human activities. [...] Most intense abstractions of freshwater resources can be observed in the UK, the Benelux countries, Germany, northern Italy, and Turkey." (Flörke et al. 2011: 68 f.)