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The purpose this paper is to examine how aware and prepared the elderly and a number of related housing associations (HAs) are of extreme weather events and the impact on their built assets as a result of climate change. It investigates how extreme weather and associated risks are perceived and the measures taken to protect the assets.

Desk research and two questionnaire surveys were conducted to collect data and information in relation to the awareness of extreme weather events and how built assets are adapted as a response. Survey results were tabulated and analysed using qualitative coding techniques and examined to identify relationships and patterns across different criteria in relation to awareness and built form adaptation to extreme weather events.

The surveys illustrate that awareness is high but the actions carried out as adaptations do not significantly reduce risks. Lack of personalisation of the risk and the resulting avoidance behaviour seems to prevent any considerable actions being taken. Thus, the elderly seem to accept basic energy saving measures as extreme weather adaptations rather than seek substantial actions that minimise risk to their houses. The results highlight the need to identify different design, construction and management solutions to improve resilience of different dwelling types to different economic sectors and different community groups.

The HA survey sample is too small to derive general conclusions but illustrates the varying positions of different organisations. Future research will further the survey with a larger sample and extend to local authorities (LAs).

The findings provide valuable information and insights to all related stakeholders in formulating programmes in securing built assets in extreme weather events.

Provide an understanding of the awareness and the preparedness of a vulnerable group, the elderly, and their dwellings to extreme weather events.

While the government hold consultations and dissemination events at national and regional levels, individual community groups and local agencies who are directly involved in providing services are not yet engaged in this dialogue. These two surveys made an attempt to gauge the awareness and the preparedness of the respondents of two such segments, in adapting their homes and built assets as a response to extreme weather associated risks.

In this study, the authors examine the push and pull effects of extreme weather events on migration among governorates in Egypt.

To estimate the effect of extreme weather events on internal migration, the authors use migration gravity models and data from the 1996 and 2006 Population and Housing Censuses. The authors measure weather extremes by the number of months in the past 36 months with temperatures or precipitation of a governorate below the 5th percentile and above the 95th percentile of the distribution of monthly temperatures or precipitation of the corresponding governorate during the period 1900–2006.

This study’s results suggest that high temperatures in the origin area act as a push factor. High-temperature extremes have a positive effect on out-migration. A 1% increase in the number of months with high-temperature extremes in the original governorate results in a 0.1% increase in the number of out-migrants.

The study suggests that people may respond to weather extremes through migration. However, climate migrants in Egypt may encounter several significant risks that authorities must address.

This study is one of the first attempts to measure the push and pull effect of weather extremes on migration in Egypt.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the current state of FM preparedness required to deal with the risks to healthcare delivery posed by climate change‐related extreme weather events.

Selected stakeholders were invited to participate in targeted focus groups that, using the ROMS methodology, explored the status of current knowledge and preparedness of the NSW health system to deal with the expected demands imposed by increasing incidences of extreme weather events. Findings are summarised and discussed in terms of the key stakeholder objectives identified. Further areas of required research are then discussed.

The key objectives of the stakeholders were readily agreed, however a lack of information regarding the quantifiable impacts forecast to be associated with climate change constrained the development of other than generic strategies for dealing with these impacts. Further areas of research included assessment of changing demand for health services, likely physical impacts on facilities and their adequacy in coping with these, implementation strategies for augmenting coping capacity and associated costs, plus the need for integrating disaster planning and management strategies to ensure the continuity of operation of health facilities during extreme weather events.

The paper outlines the status of current knowledge regarding the likely impact of climate change‐related extreme weather events on healthcare infrastructure. It explores key issues and determines where future work should be undertaken to ensure that rigorous FM responses are available to cope with a clear and identified threat to the health of the Australian, and similar communities.

Managing the risks associated to world food production is an important challenge for governments. A range of factors, among them extreme weather events, has threatened food production in recent years. The purpose of this paper is to analyse the impact of extreme rainfall events on the food industry in Brazil, a prominent player in this industry.

The authors use the AR-GARCH-GPD hybrid methodology to identify whether extreme rainfall affects the stock price of food companies. To do so, the authors collected the daily closing price of the 16 food industry companies listed on the Brazilian stock exchange (B3), in January 2015.

The results indicate that these events have a significant impact on stock returns: on more than half of the days immediately following the heavy rain that fell between 28 February 2005 and 30 December 2014, returns were significantly low, leading to average daily losses of 1.97 per cent. These results point to the relevance of the need for instruments to hedge against weather risk, particularly in the food industry.

Given that extreme weather events have been occurring more and more frequently, financial literature has documented attempts at assessing the economic impacts of weather changes. There is little research, however, into assessing the impacts of these events at corporate level.

O gerenciamento de riscos associados à produção mundial de alimentos é um desafio importante para governantes. Diversos fatores, entre eles os eventos climáticos extremos, têm ameaçado a produção de alimentos nos últimos anos. Neste artigo nós analisamos o impacto de eventos de chuvas extremas na indústria de alimentos no Brasil, um dos maiores produtores mundiais.

Empregamos a metodologia híbrida AR-GARCH-GPD para verificar se chuvas extremas afetam o preço das ações das empresas de alimentos. Para isso, coletamos os preços de fechamento diário de 16 empresas do setor de alimentos listadas na Bolsa de Valores do Brasil [B]³, em janeiro de 2015.

Os resultados sugerem que esses eventos exercem impacto significante sobre o retorno das ações: em mais da metade dos dias imediatamente posteriores à chuva extrema ocorrida entre 28/02/2005 e 30/12/2014, os retornos foram significantemente baixos, levando a perdas médias diárias próximas de 1,97%. Esses resultados apontam para a relevância da necessidade de instrumentos para proteção contra riscos climáticos, particularmente na indústria de alimentos.

Tendo em vista que eventos climáticos extremos têm ocorrido com uma frequência cada vez maior, a literatura de finanças tem documentado tentativas de avaliar os impactos econômicos das mudanças climáticas. No entanto, nota-se a carência de pesquisas para avaliar os impactos desses eventos no nível das empresas.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of extreme weather on tourism events through the perceptions of participants, using the case of the 2017 Cape Town Cycle Tour (CTCT).

This study utilized a survey method to collect data. Questionnaires were distributed online to would-be participants in the cancelled 2017 CTCT. The questionnaire included both fixed-response and open-ended questions.

The results show that participants experienced mixed emotions to event cancellation. Most felt that the weather conditions warranted cancellation, but some concerns emerged as to how the cancellation was managed. In addition, many felt that the organization of the race needs to be rethought due to numerous negative weather experiences in recent years.

The findings in this study are exploratory. They focus on a single event in one city. However, they provide important initial insight into how sporting event participants react to the negative impacts of extreme weather.

These results have important management implications in addressing the impact of weather on the events sector. They are significant in understanding best practice with regard to managing participants in the case of weather impacts on an event. They also demonstrate interesting results with regard to participant loyalty among active sport events tourists.

The originality of this study is in its extension of the broad discussion of the impact of extreme weather and climate change on tourism to the events sector. The implications of changing weather and climatic patterns on events, particularly mass-participation sporting events, are clear and need to be considered in order to effectively manage future impacts on this important economic sector. This is done by providing insight into how participants respond to these types of circumstances.

The purpose of this paper is to provide an introduction to and overview of this special issue titled “Municipalities addressing climate change: a case study of Norway”. It provides the rationale for the project leading to the special issue while summarizing the issue's contents and outcomes.

Seven research institutes in Norway were brought together for a five‐year project examining adaptation to extreme weather in Norway at the municipal level.

The project led to individual and collaborative research linked to policy advice for Norwegian municipalities. Barriers and opportunities to act locally regarding extreme weather were identified, giving ways forward through more science along with policy and action possibilities.

Only three main sectors were covered: drinking water supply, cultural heritage, and flood risk reduction. Extreme weather affects other sectors too, but no advice is given regarding those areas.

The project led to fact sheets, a web site, and engagement with practitioners at the municipal level in two ways. First, providing science‐based advice that can be used by those working for municipalities. Second, providing practical advice to scientists regarding what practitioners seek from research.

The work will contribute to improving how Norwegian municipalities consider and address extreme weather, in the context of climate change amongst other hazards, along with further social and environmental changes affecting municipalities.

This special issue represents an interdisciplinary, cross‐sectoral approach towards useable science. It is also relatively original in providing an interdisciplinary approach for the case study of Norway.

A predicted increase in climate change-related extreme weather events will present hospitals with new health-related and physical risks which were not originally anticipated in building and infrastructure designs. Markus et al.'s building systems model is used to analyse a range of adaptive strategies to cope with such events. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

Focus group interviews were conducted with a wide range of hospital stakeholders across three case study hospitals in Australia and New Zealand which have experienced extreme weather events.

It is concluded that effective adaptive strategies must balance responses across different organisational sub-systems. Contrary to previous research, the findings indicate that hospital managers do see hospital infrastructure as an important component of disaster response. However, it is the least adaptable of all response subsystems, making other options more attractive in the heat of a crisis.

A focus on three case studies allowed the researchers to explore in-depth the experiences of stakeholders who had experienced extreme weather events. While producing highly valid results, the inherent limitation of this approach is the lack of breath. So further case studies are needed to generalise from the results.

Recommendations are made to improve the adaptive capacity of healthcare facilities to cope with the future health challenges of climate change risk.

By acknowledging that no one group holds all the knowledge to deal with extreme weather events, this paper capture the collective knowledge of all key stakeholders who have a stake in the process of responding effectively to such an event. It shows that hospital adaptation strategies cannot be considered in isolation from the surrounding emergency management systems in which a hospital is imbedded.

Global temperature has risen by 1°C since 1900, while since the 1990s the Arctic has recently experienced an accelerated warming of about double the average rate of global warming. Nearly all climate scientists agree that the main cause of this temperature rise is ever-increasing accumulations of ‘greenhouse gases’, especially carbon dioxide and methane, within our atmosphere. Sea level rise could easily exceed one metre this century under ‘business as usual’. However, global warming is not just about rising temperatures, melting ice and rising sea levels, but it also affects the frequency and severity of many extreme weather events. Planetary warming is not a uniform process, can spring surprises in regional climate change and is probably linked with the tendency for Northern Hemisphere mid-latitudes to have more extreme (variously hot/cold/dry/wet) weather, especially during the recent period of rapid Arctic warming. There is overwhelming scientific evidence that human activity through enhanced greenhouse gas emissions is largely responsible for recent climate change and accompanying extreme weather, and we are already clearly seeing these changes. However, it is equally evident that, although initial remedial steps are being taken, finding an adequate solution will not be easy unless much larger changes are made to the way in which we all live. Limiting global warming to 1.5°C above pre-industrial temperatures would require global carbon dioxide emissions to decrease by approximately 40–60% by 2030 relative to 2010 levels. This can only be achieved through a collective solution that fully involves diverse communities, among them religious stakeholders.

The UK experienced a number of Extreme Weather Events (EWEs) during recent years and a significant number of businesses were affected as a result. With the intensity and frequency of weather extremes predicted in the future, enhancing the resilience of businesses, especially of Small and Medium‐sized Enterprises (SMEs), who are considered as highly vulnerable, has become a necessity. However, little research has been undertaken on how construction SMEs respond to the risk of EWEs. In seeking to help address this dearth of research, this investigation sought to identify how construction SMEs were being affected by EWEs and the coping strategies being used.

A mixed methods research design was adopted to elicit information from construction SMEs, involving a questionnaire survey and case study approach.

Results indicate a lack of coping strategies among the construction SMEs studied. Where the coping strategies have been implemented, these were found to be extensions of their existing risk management strategies rather than radical measures specifically addressing EWEs.

The exploratory survey focused on the Greater London area and was limited to a relatively small sample size. This limitation is overcome by conducting detailed case studies utilising two SMEs whose projects were located in EWE prone localities. The mixed method research design adopted benefits the research by presenting more robust findings.

A better way of integrating the potential of EWEs into the initial project planning stage is required by the SMEs. This could possibly be achieved through a better risk assessment model supported by better EWE prediction data.

The paper provides an original contribution towards the overarching agenda of resilience of SMEs and policy making in the area of EWE risk management. It informs both policy makers and practitioners on issues of planning and preparedness against EWEs.

The purpose of this paper is to review some challenges of insuring weather risk in agriculture and to discuss potential remedies for these problems.

The paper is developed as a narrative on weather insurance based largely on existing literature.

Weather risks show characteristics that often violate classical requirements for insurability. First, some weather risks, particularly slowly emerging weather perils like drought, are spatially correlated and cause systemic risks. Second, climatic change may increase the volatility of weather variables and lead to non-stationary loss distributions, which causes difficulties in actuarial ratemaking. Third, limited availability of yield and weather data hinders the estimation of reliable loss distributions.

Some of the approaches discussed in this review, such as time diversification, local test procedures and the augmentation of observational data by expert knowledge, can be useful for crop insurance companies to improve their risk management and product design.

This study provides background and development information regarding weather insurance and also presents statistical tools and actuarial methods that support the assessment of weather risks as well as the design of weather and yield insurance products.