Natural hazards and climate change risks in Athens

Map 3: Standard surface temperature map of Attica during the summer*

*Megara (1), Elefsina-Aspropyrgos (2), Mesogeia (3) and the centre of Athens (4).

Source: Keramitsoglou et al., (2011)

In terms of the ratio of burned forest area to the total forest cover, Attica was the most fire-ravaged region of the country in the period 1991-2004 (26%). As expected, those primarily exposed to forest fires are holiday and other countryside settlements in Athens as well as developments built in forests and forest lands, often without permit. However, as shown by the dramatic destruction of the Parnitha National Park in 2007 (officially attributed to a short circuit in an electricity pylon), the secondary and long-term consequences affect the residents of the capital. The incineration of the last remaining large forest area near Athens caused a change of the microclimate, hotter summers, prolonged heat waves and floods in the winter. The worst aspect of the problem of forest fires is that the vast majority of their causes (70%) are recorded as unknown (figure 1), which drastically reduces the possibility of an effective prevention policy.

Figure 1: Causes of forest fires in Attica in the period 1991-2004

Source: Kaoukis, 2009

The risk exposure factors associated with climate change (heat waves, floods, forest fires) are expected to increase in the future. According to a study by the National Observatory of Athens (Ακύλας et al. 2005), in the 90s, heat waves in Greece increased three-fold compared to the preceding thirty-year period.

Human, Social and Institutional Vulnerability before and after the Crisis

The potential losses for those exposed to hazards depends on their vulnerability or their susceptibility to damage. This vulnerability is multifaceted: human, social, economic, institutional, urban, ecological etc. Human and social vulnerability depends on factors such as the lack of social cohesion, social exclusion, poverty, gender, age, household composition, unemployment, education level, health status, housing conditions, degree of access to political power, resources and rights, risk response culture and obstacles to access information on risks.

Analyses of spatial and social inequalities in Athens by social geographers and urban planners before the crisis (Maloutas 2004, Emmanuel 2004) can help us map the unequal distribution of spatio-social vulnerability before the crisis. Map 4 presents the pre-crisis rating of the Capital’s municipalities on cumulative spatio-social vulnerability due to poverty, illiteracy, ageing and population density. Certainly, these four coefficients are not the only ones with critical importance, but they define many others (for example, poverty often implies problematic housing conditions). Inequalities in cumulative vulnerability before the crisis are a precursor of more intense inequalities post-crisis.

Map 4: Rating of pre-crisis Composite/Cumulative Vulnerability in the municipalities of Athens Metropolitan Area.

Source: Authors’ own processing

In fact, the economic crisis aggravated all critical factors in human and social vulnerability against natural hazards: social exclusion, poverty, unemployment, energy poverty, food safety, access to healthcare and care for the elderly. The worst aspect of this outcome is the increase and rapid expansion of social groups and areas that suffered multiple additional adversities and were exposed to vulnerability-increasing factors simultaneously. For example, older people fell into poverty and lost access to healthcare simultaneously. These groups and areas will certainly be the first victims in a future natural disaster.

Losses from any natural disaster will be intensified by the increase of institutional vulnerability due to the crisis. Important civil protection and risk prevention organisations and institutions are in decay as they are losing staff, financial support, technical resources and skills. This is the result of mergers, funding cuts or the abolition of public institutions that used to play a crucial role in preventive protection, crisis management and post-disaster reconstruction. For example, funding cuts took place in organisations responsible for forest protection; these bodies used to cover the recruitment of seasonal fire fighters, supplied and maintained firefighting equipment, cleaned forests and opened the forest road network. However, what will suffer most due to the economic crisis is the prevention of natural hazards/disasters because “…the benefits from prevention cannot be immediately felt, as they are intended for disasters that never happened…” (Annan 1999).