This chapter highlights key climate impacts, hazards and vulnerabilities
and associated indicators that have been used to assess current (recent) climate impacts
at each of the case-study sites. The aim is to illustrate some of the wide range of information
available from individual case studies and highlight common themes that are
evident across multiple case-study locations. This is used to demonstrate linkages and
sensitivities between the speci fi c climate impacts of relevance for each case-study
type (urban, rural and coastal) and the key climate hazards and biogeophysical and
social vulnerabilities representing the underlying drivers and site conditions. For some impacts, there are clear, direct links with climate events, such as heat stress and
fl ooding, while for others, such as energy supply and demand, the causal relationships
are more indirect, via a cascade of climate, social and economic in fl uences. Water
availability and extreme temperatures are common drivers of current climate impacts
across all case studies, including, for example, freshwater supply and heat stress for
urban populations; irrigation capacity and growing season length for agricultural
regions; and saltwater intrusion of aquifers and tourist visitor numbers at coastal
locations. At some individual case-study locations, speci fi c impacts, hazards and/
or vulnerabilities are observed, such as peri-urban fires in Greater Athens, infrastructure
vulnerability to coastal fl ooding in Alexandria, groundwater levels in Tel Hadya
and vector-borne diseases in the Gulf of Oran. Throughout this chapter, evidence of
current climate impacts, hazards and vulnerabilities from each of the case studies
is detailed and assessed relative to other case studies. This provides a foundation
for considering the wider perspective of the Mediterranean region as a whole, and for
providing a context from which to assess consequences of future climate projections
and consider suitable adaptation options.