Cold Spot Risk Assessment

This story map is based on the analysis and content of the  Winterization 2022/2023: Cold Spot Risk Assessment factsheet :

In their flash update from 17th October 2022, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) highlighted the ongoing winterization efforts to help at least 2.4 million Ukrainians prepare for the upcoming cold conditions. Overall capacity to cope with cold temperatures is being further impaired by ongoing destruction and failure of infrastructures (e.g., electricity, water, heating)  (UNOCHA 2022) .

This Cold Spot Risk Assessment aims to identify geographic locations of ‘Cold Spots’, meaning geographic areas where winter-related hazards (e.g., cold waves) compound with susceptibilities (e.g., internal displacement; older persons; etc.) and the Lack of Coping Capacity (LOCC) (e.g., infrastructure damages), impacting vulnerable people most severely. The concept of the analysis is derived from the disaster risk model by the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction  (UNDRR 2017)  which defines risk as a combination of hazard, exposure, and vulnerability (consisting of susceptibility and the LOCC).

Risk is defined as the consequence of the interaction between hazards and the characteristics of exposure and vulnerabilities. Within this study, the following risk formula is used:

Risk = Hazard x Exposure x Vulnerability (Susceptibility + Lack of Coping Capacity)

Hazard ‘A hazard is a process, phenomenon or human activity that may cause loss of life, injury or other health impacts, property damage, social and economic disruption or environmental degradation. Hazards may be natural, anthropogenic or socionatural in origin’. This study focuses on winter-related hydrometeorological hazards, including cold waves and cold temperatures.

Exposure ‘The situation of people, infrastructure, housing, production capacities and other tangible human assets located in hazard-prone areas’. This study focuses on people exposed to winter-related hazards.

Vulnerability ‘The characteristics determined by physical, social, economic and environmental factors or processes which increase the susceptibility of an individual, a community, assets or systems to the impacts of hazards.’ In this study vulnerability is defined as a combination of susceptibility and the Lack of Coping Capacity (LOCC):

• Susceptibility: People’s susceptibility to the impacts of hazards, which can be enhanced due to certain conditions (e.g., internal displacement, age, economic instability).
• Lack of Coping Capacity: Conditions which reduce people’s capacity to cope with impacts of hazards (e.g., damages to heating infrastructures, structural damages to buildings like broken windows or pipes).

The climate in Ukraine is temperate continental, with cold winters and warm summers.

Data sets of indicators for the groups of hazard (frost days; cold waves), exposure (population density), susceptibilities (number of IDPs per raion; percentage of elderly population; average income), and the LOCC (conflict incidences; heating infrastructure damages; central heating outputs) were identified and analysed. The following maps show the classes for each group which were defined through assessing the indicator values per raion.

Interact with the maps: Click on a raion to open pop-ups with detailed information or use the '+/-' buttons on the right to zoom in on an area.

The hazard component in the analysis assesses exposure to winter-related hazards across Ukraine.

The exposure component focuses on identifying the areas where most people are potentially exposed to winter-related hazards.

The Susceptibility component assesses susceptibilities to winter conditions across Ukraine.

The LOCC component assesses infrastructure damages and capacities relevant for coping with cold conditions across Ukraine.

Definition of ‘Cold Spots’: Geographic areas where winter-related hazards (e.g., cold waves) compound with susceptibilities (e.g., internal displacement; elderly population etc.) and the Lack of Coping Capacity (LOCC), impacting vulnerable people most severely.

The ‘Cold Spot Index‘ provides an indication of the raions where people will likely face the highest, compounding impacts of exposure to winter-related hazards, and vulnerabilities (as a combination of susceptibilities and the LOCC) in winter 2022/23 in Ukraine.

The Cold Spot Risk Assessment provides insights into the impacts of winter conditions on vulnerable people, including the following key findings:

Following chapter shows case examples from Kharkiv City (Highest Cold Spot Index) and Dnipro City (Very High Cold Spot Index). These examples aim to give insights into conditions impacting cold spot risks on a local level.

The imagery below shows Kharkiv City Centre on 22 February 2022 (left) and 22 May 2022 (right). In the imagery on the right, building damages due to missile strikes are visible. Interact with the imagery: Move the slider in the middle to change between viewing the before and after imagery.

•  Winterization 2022/23: Cold Spot Risk Assessment 
•  Winterization 2022/23: Climatic conditions  
•  Winterization 2022/23: Damage to energy infrastructure  
•  Energy infrastructure damage: Situation overview for 10-24th October 2022 
•  Humanitarian Situation Monitoring August 2022 

This ‘Cold Spot Risk Assessment’ highlights areas with likely most severe impacts on people, based on the analysed indicators. Areas which are classified as ‘Very Low’ have a very low CSI based on those specific indicators. However, this does not mean that those areas have overall no vulnerability or needs. It is likely that vulnerabilities are present which were not captured with the analysed indicators. For example, using number of IDPs per raion as indicator draws the focus to raions with high numbers of IDPs, meanwhile conflict-affected population which did not leave might face severe impacts by winter conditions as well. It is therefore essential to capture data on those currently ‘invisible’ groups. The strongest technical limitations in this assessment are the availability and quality of data sets. The most accurate data is on climate conditions and hazards. However, it is historic data and therefore provides insights into historic trends but does not provide an outlook to winter conditions in 2022/23. The least accurate and most outdated data is on population statistics, income, and capacities of central heating systems. Data is available per oblast, which is very general and dated back to 2020.

Especially for analysis of population exposure to hazards it is essential to have accurate and up-to date population statistics. Therefore, population statistics are estimates and not fully accurate in terms of current population distribution across Ukraine. Inaccuracies in population statistics are enhanced by the massive movements of population between oblasts, raions as well as people leaving Ukraine throughout the past months. Therefore, population numbers and densities calculated based on currently available sources are estimates and likely over represent population in non-government controlled areas and conflict-affected zones. Due to these strong limitations it was decided to assign exposure the least weight in the CSI formula.

A further limitation of the assessment is the classification of analysed data and the final CSI values. It was decided to use quantiles as method in setting group classes of indicators in order to provide insight on the most impacted areas relative within Ukraine. However, using quantiles can group quite differing values into one class. For the final CSI map, natural breaks were used as method to group raions with similar situations in terms of winter-related impacts. There is no standardized classification or fixed thresholds for this type of analysis which is why it was aimed to find the best balance between providing detailed information while keeping clarity in the results. Lastly, this assessment highlights areas of likely most severe impacts on people in winter 2022/23, ultimately putting a spotlight on those raions. It will be essential to ensure coordination of humanitarian assistance to avoid an over-representation of actors and humanitarian assistance in ‘spotlight area’, leaving out other areas which might face relatively less but still severe impacts.