Environmental Research 192 (2021) 110268 Available online 28 September 2020 0013-9351/© 2020 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. Socio-economic and environmental vulnerability to heat-related phenomena in Bucharest metropolitan area Ines Grigorescu, Irena Mocanu * , Bianca Mitric˘ a, Monica Dumitras ¸cu, Cristina Dumitric˘ a, Carmen-Sofa Dragot˘ a Institute of Geography, Romanian Academy, 12 Dimitrie Racoviț˘ a Street, sector 2, 023993, Bucharest, Romania A R T I C L E INFO Keywords: Socio-economic vulnerability index (SEVI) Environmental vulnerability index (EVI) Heat vulnerability index (HVI) Bucharest metropolitan area ABSTRACT In the recent years, the effects of extreme climate phenomena (mainly heat-related) on agricultural crops, infrastructure and human health have become increasingly severe as a result of their complex interactions with the particularities of the urban/rural habitat, as well as the social and economic factors. In Romania, heat-related phenomena (e.g. drought, heat waves) are affecting wide areas in the southern half of the territory where the study area (Bucharest Metropolitan Area) lies. The paper aims to develop a multi-criteria vulnerability assess- ment using both quantitative and qualitative methods. 23 indicators were selected and processed in order to assess various components of socio-economic and environmental vulnerability to heat-related phenomena using the statistical data available at local administrative units (LAU). The indicators were grouped into the three key components of vulnerability (potential exposure, sensitivity and adaptive capacity) on two dimensions (socio- economic and environmental) resulting two indexes: Socio-Economic Vulnerability Index (SEVI) and Environ- mental Vulnerability Index (EVI). Finally, an integrated Heat Vulnerability Index (HVI) (using Hull score, average 50 and standard deviation 14) was computed. 1. Introduction Cities and their surrounding territories are home to the largest share of European population and its economic activities, thus being partic- ularly vulnerable to climate change impacts (Timmerman et al., 2016) related to drought, heat waves or heavy rainfall. Among them, heat waves and drought are unquestionably the two most important stresses having huge multi-lateral impacts (Fahad et al., 2017), generally referred to as heat-related phenomena (Yoo, 2019) or judged by the negative effects they produced as heat-related illness (Leal Filho et al., 2018), heat-related mortality (Pyrgou and Santamouris, 2018; Janda- ghian and Akbari, 2018; Graczyk et al., 2019). They are affecting urban and suburban areas slightly different, but equally: heat waves are mainly disturbing urban core areas, while drought has a predominant impact on their surrounding territories, mainly agricultural lands. Drought, in particular, has been considered the most complex, affecting more people than any other hazard (Whilhite et al., 2007) impacting large areas and imposing relevant restrictions on multiple water-dependent economic activities (Maia et al., 2015). Its effects vary signifcantly between regions because of the differences in the economic, social, and envi- ronmental characteristics (S¨ onmez et al., 2005) and its impacts depend on its changes in the magnitude and frequency, duration and areal extent (Mishra and Singh, 2009; Jain et al., 2015). In urban areas, during heat waves, the high temperatures are often exacerbated by the Urban Heat Island (UHI) which amplifes the overall vulnerability (Lemonsu et al., 2015). Generally, the severity of heat-related impacts is assessed through meteorological, agricultural and/or hydrological indices (McKee et al., 1993; Hayes, 2003; Dubrovsky et al., 2009) which usually don’t refect the socio-economic dimension (Maia et al., 2015). In the recent years, the high economic costs and the increased social vulnerability of heat-related phenomena have led to rising attention to the vulnerability issue (S¨ onmez et al., 2005) since it serves as a bridge between climate change impacts and adaptation (Malone et al., 2011). Several researches attempted to carry out vulnerability assessment methodologies (Iglesias et al., 2009) based on indicators for social and economic coping capacity to climate change-related extreme events (Yohe and Tol, 2002) and develop different versions of indexes to quantify the adaptive capacity * Corresponding author. E-mail addresses: inesgrigorescu@yahoo.com (I. Grigorescu), mocanitai@yahoo.com (I. Mocanu), biancadumitrescu78@yahoo.com (B. Mitric˘ a), stefania_ dumitrascu@yahoo.com (M. Dumitras ¸cu), geocrisro@yahoo.com (C. Dumitric˘ a), dragotacarmensofa@gmail.com (C.-S. Dragot˘ a). Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Environmental Research journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/envres https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envres.2020.110268 Received 29 May 2020; Received in revised form 12 August 2020; Accepted 18 September 2020