The refinq 100

Europe’s 100 most

climate-exposed regions.

Scoring regions for climate exposure is what we do every day. So when the European Commission announced it will name 100 vulnerable territories this October, we ran the same question across every region in the EU, all 1,165 of them.

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1,165 NUTS-3 regionsEU27

Findings

What the data says

01

Three countries hold three quarters of the list.

Italy 40, Spain 22, Greece 12. The other 26 regions are spread across six member states.

02

Heat leads in 51 of the 100.

Water scarcity in 39. Wildfire in 8, flood in 2. And no region on the list has just one problem. Every single one scores high on at least two hazards at the same time.

Leading hazard means the highest of the four bands. Where several are tied at the top, the order is heat, water scarcity, wildfire, flood.

03

Austria enters the ranking at 294.

That is the Weinviertel, north of Vienna.

01

Three countries hold three quarters of the list.

Italy 40, Spain 22, Greece 12. The other 26 regions are spread across six member states.

02

Heat leads in 51 of the 100.

Water scarcity in 39. Wildfire in 8, flood in 2. And no region on the list has just one problem. Every single one scores high on at least two hazards at the same time.

Leading hazard means the highest of the four bands. Where several are tied at the top, the order is heat, water scarcity, wildfire, flood.

03

Austria enters the ranking at 294.

That is the Weinviertel, north of Vienna.

01

Three countries hold three quarters of the list.

Italy 40, Spain 22, Greece 12. The other 26 regions are spread across six member states.

02

Heat leads in 51 of the 100.

Water scarcity in 39. Wildfire in 8, flood in 2. And no region on the list has just one problem. Every single one scores high on at least two hazards at the same time.

Leading hazard means the highest of the four bands. Where several are tied at the top, the order is heat, water scarcity, wildfire, flood.

03

Austria enters the ranking at 294.

That is the Weinviertel, north of Vienna.

The top ten of 1,165

Where it hits hardest

Seven of the top ten are in Italy.
RankRegionCountryLeading hazardScore
1FerraraItaly · HeatItalyHeat97.4
2Bouches-du-RhôneFrance · HeatFranceHeat95.6
3PisaItaly · HeatItalyHeat94.6
4GiurgiuRomania · WildfireRomaniaWildfire92.7
5RavennaItaly · HeatItalyHeat91.6
6CremonaItaly · HeatItalyHeat91.2
7CasertaItaly · Water scarcityItalyWater scarcity90.8
8SerresGreece · Water scarcityGreeceWater scarcity90.7
9PadovaItaly · HeatItalyHeat89.7
10RovigoItaly · HeatItalyHeat89.4
Scores for 2080 under high emissions (RCP8.5 / SSP5-8.5).The full list of all 1,165 regions is available as a spreadsheet on request.

Method

NUTS-3 regions · 2024

Heat · water · wildfire · flood

RCP8.5 / SSP5-8.5 · 2080

Plain average · 0 to 100

And then it gets interesting

This map is the shallowest thing we do

One number per region is the wide-angle view. It is enough to see where Europe’s exposure concentrates and how countries compare. What sits underneath it runs one address at a time, at a resolution no regional map can show.

01 Region

Every region in the EU, four hazards, one number each.

02 Asset

We score every site against more than 20 physical climate hazards, out to 2100. The hazard list is the one the EU Taxonomy and the ESRS guidelines set out; the projections come from the climate models the IPCC works with.

03 Nature and transition

What that site takes from nature, what it costs nature, and how policy, markets, technology and public opinion are shifting around it.

04 Action

Knowing the number is only half of it. We also return what to do about it: adaptation measures on the climate side, mitigation measures on the nature side, and only where a risk actually lands in the High or Very High band.

Method

NUTS-3 regions · 2024

Heat · water · wildfire · flood

RCP8.5 / SSP5-8.5 · 2080

Plain average · 0 to 100

And then it gets interesting

This map is the shallowest thing we do

One number per region is the wide-angle view. It is enough to see where Europe’s exposure concentrates and how countries compare. What sits underneath it runs one address at a time, at a resolution no regional map can show.

01 Region

Every region in the EU, four hazards, one number each.

02 Asset

We score every site against more than 20 physical climate hazards, out to 2100. The hazard list is the one the EU Taxonomy and the ESRS guidelines set out; the projections come from the climate models the IPCC works with.

03 Nature and transition

What that site takes from nature, what it costs nature, and how policy, markets, technology and public opinion are shifting around it.

04 Action

Knowing the number is only half of it. We also return what to do about it: adaptation measures on the climate side, mitigation measures on the nature side, and only where a risk actually lands in the High or Very High band.

Method

NUTS-3 regions · 2024

Heat · water · wildfire · flood

RCP8.5 / SSP5-8.5 · 2080

Plain average · 0 to 100

And then it gets interesting

This map is the shallowest thing we do

One number per region is the wide-angle view. It is enough to see where Europe’s exposure concentrates and how countries compare. What sits underneath it runs one address at a time, at a resolution no regional map can show.

01 Region

Every region in the EU, four hazards, one number each.

02 Asset

We score every site against more than 20 physical climate hazards, out to 2100. The hazard list is the one the EU Taxonomy and the ESRS guidelines set out; the projections come from the climate models the IPCC works with.

03 Nature and transition

What that site takes from nature, what it costs nature, and how policy, markets, technology and public opinion are shifting around it.

04 Action

Knowing the number is only half of it. We also return what to do about it: adaptation measures on the climate side, mitigation measures on the nature side, and only where a risk actually lands in the High or Very High band.

„This is not about mitigation or adaptation. We need both. And they need to strengthen each other.“

„This is not about mitigation or adaptation. We need both. And they need to strengthen each other.“

Ursula von der Leyen · State of the Union, 16 September 2026

„This is not about mitigation or adaptation. We need both. And they need to strengthen each other.“

Ursula von der Leyen · State of the Union, 16 September 2026

Ursula von der Leyen delivering the State of the Union address in the European Parliament, Strasbourg, 16 September 2026

Ursula von der Leyen delivering the State of the Union address in the European Parliament, Strasbourg, 16 September 2026

Photo © European Union, 2026

Method

How the ranking is built

Unit

Europe’s standard statistical regions (NUTS-3), roughly a province or a district. 2024 definition, from Eurostat.

Hazards and data

Heat, water scarcity, wildfire, flood. Sources: Copernicus C3S, WRI Aqueduct 4.0, JRC.

Scenario, horizon

High emissions (RCP8.5 / SSP5-8.5). ‘2080’ is the average of 2066 to 2085, around 3 °C of warming. ‘Today’ is the average of 2006 to 2025. Both are absolute scores on the same fixed scale, not a change between the two.

Scale

0 to 100 combined, higher means more exposed.

Aggregation

Each hazard is averaged across the whole territory of the region, then normalised through fixed band edges. It is a hazard score, not an asset score.

Combined score

The plain average of the four hazards. None counts for more than another.

Region boundaries come from Eurostat’s GISCO service (NUTS 2024) © EuroGeographics. The satellite imagery on the map is by Esri, Maxar and Earthstar Geographics. All scores are refinq’s own.

Exposure is not vulnerability.

This ranking measures how hard climate hazards act on a region. It does not measure how well that region is prepared for them. A region can rank high here and still be in good shape, because it has defences, money and a plan. Vulnerability is the wider question. It also asks how well a place is prepared, funded and defended. The two views belong together, and the interesting places are the ones where they disagree.

Interactive map

Find your region

All 1,165 regions of the EU, every hazard, and a slider that runs from today to 2080. Look up your own and see where it lands.

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