Archetypes of heat risk: An intersectional perspective on relative within-country differences

Preinfalk, E., Beier, J., Hanger-Kopp, S., & Bachner, G. (2026). Archetypes of heat risk: An intersectional perspective on relative within-country differences. International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction 144 e106363. 10.1016/j.ijdrr.2026.106363.

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Abstract

Climate risk is unevenly distributed across society, shaped by intersecting social, economic, and environmental factors. Existing risk assessments often fail to capture how these factors intersect to produce relative differences within countries, particularly under changing future conditions. We address this gap by developing a mixed-methods approach to operationalize intersectional vulnerability in climate risk assessments and quantify differentiated relative risk across a country's population. Applied in the context of heat risk in Austria, we combine qualitative insights from literature, stakeholder engagement and semi-structured interviews with quantitative clustering of georeferenced socioeconomic and heat exposure data. This allows us to identify five distinct heat risk archetypes that capture recurring patterns of exposure and intersectional vulnerability, revealing who is more at risk relative to others. Examples include blue-collar workers in urban low-income neighborhoods and elderly individuals whose vulnerability is compounded by low financial coping capacities. Extending the analysis into the future using climate projections and socioeconomic scenarios, we show that heat risk increases across all archetypes, driven not only by rising temperatures but also by demographic change and growing inequality. By integrating hazard, exposure and vulnerability within an intersectional and forward-looking framework, our novel approach enables a nuanced understanding of relative differences in heat risk within countries. The resulting archetypes can support the development and prioritization of effective and equitable adaptation strategies across scales that account for relative differences and changes in risk constellations until 2080.

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