Spotlight on environment and health: projects protecting human health and the environment in prospect of increasingly frequent heat waves

Across Europe, periods of extreme heat are becoming an increasingly pressing concern, with unusually high temperatures persisting for days across numerous regions. As the climate continues to warm, extreme weather events are expected to occur more often, reach greater intensity and last for longer periods. National authorities remain the first actors responsible for civil protection and the Commission supports EU countries in all phases of disaster response.

The road ahead is a difficult one but through cooperation, engagement and solidarity, Europe will move towards a collective and clear objective: to raise the protection of our citizens and our territories against the growing and challenging risk landscape.
Hadja Lahbib, Commissioner for equality, preparedness and crisis management

In July, the European Health Security Committee discussed the growing health impacts of extreme heat and the need for stronger EU coordination, surveillance, risk assessment and communication. As climate change, pollution and other pressures grow, so does the need for taking a One Health approach, integrating and sustainably balancing the health of people, animals and ecosystems.

Discover a selection of projects, managed by the European Health and Digital Executive Agency (HaDEA), that are protecting human health in the context of an increasingly changing climate.

Solutions for mitigating climate-induced health threats

The Horizon Europe Cluster 1: Health project TRIGGER aims to increase public awareness and knowledge of the link between climate change, health and ecosystems. The project is working to establish five Climate-Health Connection Labs in Europe that engage citizens, practitioners and policymakers. The labs will investigate geographical areas exposed to adverse impacts of climate change, such as increased heat waves, air pollution and droughts, and will address related key health issues such as cardiovascular diseases, respiratory diseases and effects of UV exposure.

The results of the project so far indicate that climate-related health risks can be better identified, predicted and assessed by:

developing high-resolution indicators of climate-related and environmental exposures, including heat, combining meteorological and climate data at different spatial and temporal scales;
improving heat-stress and multi-hazard forecasting, with the TRIGGER forecasting system predicting severe heat-stress conditions more than one week in advance;
strengthening prediction of climate-related extremes, through a forecasting approach that incorporates information from large-scale climate drivers to improve seasonal predictions;
assessing the health effects of heat, cold and air pollution, both separately and as combined exposures, since their interactions may generate risks that cannot be adequately captured by considering each environmental stressor independently;
identifying populations and sectors most vulnerable to climate-related hazards, showing particularly high socio-economic losses in outdoor sectors such as agriculture and construction, while lower-skilled and older workers face greater systematic risks due to their concentration in less climate-controlled jobs;
investigating further how young and adult climate exposure is associated with adult blood pressure, as significant associations were found by the project;
identifying robust indicators for heat-attributable mortality, since estimates currently vary substantially depending on the indicator used, particularly in warmer locations.

TRIGGER is one of the six projects making up the ‘Climate Change and Health Cluster’ which delivers scientific evidence to support EU and global climate policies with €59 million in EU funding under Horizon Europe.

One Health Surveillance

Climate change, including rising temperatures and more frequent heatwaves, can influence the survival, replication, seasonality and geographical distribution of certain pathogens and their vectors, living organisms that transmit infectious pathogens between hosts. In particular, higher temperatures can also accelerate mosquito development and pathogen replication within vectors, potentially increasing or extending transmission opportunities for vector-borne diseases such as West Nile virus and dengue.

The One Health surveillance action, co-funded with €19.7 million under the EU4Health programme, aims to improve cooperation between sectors and countries to strengthen the EU’s ability to detect and respond to serious cross-border health threats by building surveillance for priority pathogens. These include viruses carried by ticks and mosquitoes, such as West Nile and tick-borne encephalitis virus or bacterium that causes Lyme disease. The work is carried out in close collaboration with the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) and in coordination with the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC).

The results of the projects co-funded under this EU action so far indicate that surveillance for priority pathogens became more operational and informative by:

scaling up sampling and laboratory protocols, databases, web tools and national data-sharing platforms, improving Europe’s ability to detect pathogens earlier, monitor spread, compare data and support risk assessment;
improving integration of data about wildlife, livestock, vectors and the environment, stronger collaboration and data-sharing with EFSA, harmonising surveillance outputs across EU countries;
increasing early-warning response, strengthening preparedness for emerging zoonotic threats, and creating practical foundations for more coordinated surveillance for priority pathogens and response at both national and European level.

A concrete example is the first detection of West Nile virus in Latvia and Estonia, identified in dead wild goshawks, demonstrating value for early warning and risk assessment.

Links between extreme events, natural variability and human-induced climate change

Extreme weather events are often driven by several factors acting together, making it difficult to determine exactly how natural variability and human-induced climate change contribute to their severity. Climate attribution provides a way to investigate these links and build a clearer picture of how climate change is influencing extreme events, helping us better understand and prepare for their impacts.

The COMPASS project, funded under Horizon Europe Cluster 4: Space, is developing a harmonised framework that can be adapted to different types of climate hazards and their impacts. COMPASS aims to move beyond the attribution of individual drivers and address more complex situations, such as several hazards occurring together, a series of events unfolding over time, or one hazard triggering another.

To do this, COMPASS brings together event-based modelling across different scales, weather-type analysis to investigate the drivers of compound extremes, and contextualised storylines to communicate results in a more accessible way. The approach is being tested across use cases covering both historical extremes for various hazard types and impact context, as well as extreme events observed during the project.

5G connectivity for civil and environmental protection

As climate change intensifies, it is important to adapt how we manage risk and respond quickly to extreme weather events across different terrains. The 5G4LIVES project, funded under Connecting Europe Facility - Digital, demonstrates a replicable model for showcasing how 5G-connected drones can provide emergency and civil protection authorities with earlier situational awareness, remote assessment capabilities and real-time information during hazardous environmental conditions.

For emergency services, having the right information at the right time can make a critical difference. In Turin, the hilly landscape can make reliable connectivity during natural hazards more difficult. In Riga, authorities may need to monitor incidents on the Kisezers lake, including in locations that are hard to reach. 5G4LIVES combines hybrid private 5G networks with remotely operated drones carrying cameras, sensors and using purpose-trained AI to overcome these challenges. By providing its private 5G network, 5G4LIVES will enable command centres to gather information and assess risks from a distance, supporting faster decision-making while helping keep emergency personnel away from potentially dangerous situations.

The project already has:

completed successful drone demonstrations in Riga and Turin, showing how 5G-connected drones can support emergency response in real conditions;
developed a web-based mission planning and risk assessment tool that incorporates operational risk and 5G connectivity constraints, providing a transferable basis for future public-safety and environmental-monitoring services with drones;
started developing a replicable methodology for assessing 5G coverage, performance and time delay in the actual airspace used by drones, creating transferable guidance for cities preparing 5G-enabled drone operations;
developed a computer-vision solution that processes live drone videos to detect and classify people and watercraft, geolocate detected objects and provide operators with enhanced video feeds and alerts;
created the first open-access 5G4LIVES training package, providing four modules covering the project concept, technology, deployment, impact and policy considerations.

The same technological architecture can be extended with additional sensing capabilities for future climate-related emergencies and environmental-health applications in different locations.

Background

Over the years, the EU has taken a broad range of actions to protect both the environment and human health, through a range of policies and initiatives, such as:

Discover more HaDEA-managed projects building synergies to achieve the EU’s strategic objectives:

Learn more about HaDEA-managed EU funding programmes:

Publication date: 10 September 2026
Author: European Health and Digital Executive Agency

Programme Sector

Health

Programme

EU4Health
Horizon Europe Cluster 1: Health
Horizon Europe Cluster 4: Space
Connecting Europe Facility 2

Tags

EUFunded
Health preparedness