Summary

The Climate–Health Adaptation through New Generation Earth Observations (CHANGE) is a three-year that uses Earth Observation (EO) data to better understand and address the health impacts of climate change.

The project integrates multi-source EO datasets with health information, to support research on how extreme events - such as floods, droughts, heatwaves, and ENSO-driven anomalies -affect vulnerable populations and health systems.

CHANGE contributes to the objectives of the Paris Agreement and helps close knowledge gaps identified by the IPCC, the Lancet Countdown, and WHO on climate–health interactions. Through six regional use cases across different continents, the project is delivering a Climate and Health Adaptation Roadmap, providing actionable guidance to strengthen resilience and inform evidence-based adaptation policies.

Flooding in Porto Alegre (Brazil), captured by the Wide-Scan Panchromatic Multispectral Camera aboard the China–Brazil Earth Resources Satellite (CBERS-4A) on 9th May 2024
Flooding in Porto Alegre (Brazil), captured by the Wide-Scan Panchromatic Multispectral Camera aboard the China–Brazil Earth Resources Satellite (CBERS-4A) on 9th May 2024 (c) INPE

Project background

Climate change is a critical threat to global health, affecting human well-being, health systems, and population stability. International institutions - including WHO, IPCC, UNFCCC, and the G20 Health Working Group - emphasise that climate-related hazards are already driving premature mortality, disease outbreaks, food insecurity, mental health impacts, displacement, and disruption of essential services.

Policymakers urgently require spatially resolved, scientifically robust information to support adaptation planning, monitor risks, and strengthen climate-resilient health systems.

A significant policy challenge lies in supporting the UNFCCC Global Goal on Adaptation (GGA), particularly after the UAE Framework for Global Climate Resilience established health as a key thematic target. Nations need actionable, evidence-based guidance to assess and reduce vulnerability to climate hazards, yet the data and analytical frameworks to inform these decisions remain incomplete.

This project therefore seeks to close major knowledge gaps identified by the IPCC, WHO, the Lancet Countdown, and the European Commission regarding the climate–health nexus.

Scientifically, the project is responding to the limited integration of Earth Observation (EO) with health and socio-demographic data. While satellite-derived Essential Climate Variables (ECVs) developed under the ESA Climate Change Initiative provide long-term, global climate information, their potential for assessing climate-related health risks is underexploited. There is a need for rigorous methods to link climate hazards - especially heatwaves, floods, and droughts - with health outcomes and vulnerability dynamics.

Risk assessment is further constrained by incomplete understanding of compound and cascading events, which can amplify health impacts (e.g., flood-related disease outbreaks, drought-heat interactions). Additionally, existing studies often lack thorough uncertainty quantification and validation of models and data, which is essential for credible decision support.

A further scientific challenge is the quantification of the health burden attributable to climate change, comparing factual climatic conditions with counterfactual scenarios derived from climate projections (e.g., CMIP6). This requires accounting for social inequalities, demographic change, and adaptation mechanisms, which modulate both vulnerability and exposure.

Finally, policymakers need operational, evidence-based adaptation roadmaps showing how EO can inform planning, resource allocation, and long-term resilience of health systems. Generating such roadmaps demands the integration of scientific knowledge, climate projections, and satellite-based indicators of risk and feasibility.

Urban expansion of Niamey, Niger, between 1992 and 2020, derived from the ESA CCI ECV Land Cover time series. The maps illustrate how EO-based multi-decadal satellite observations capture the rapid growth of the built-up area (red) along the Niger River c
Spatial patterns of dengue and leptospirosis in Sri Lanka and their environmental context. (A) Dengue incidence in 2024 (B) Köppen–Geiger climate zones, dominated by tropical monsoon and savannah climates that influence disease dynamics. (C) Leptospirosis incidence in 2020 (D) ESA CCI Land Cover (2020), illustrating land-cover types—such as cropland, wetlands, and urban areas (c) University of Heidelberg

Aim

CHANGE (Climate–Health Adaptation through New Generation Earth Observations) aims to show how Earth Observation (EO) can transform the identification, monitoring, and quantification of climate-related health risks to support resilient health systems and protecting vulnerable communities worldwide.

Key objectives

Integrate Data for Actionable Insights: Combine satellite observations, climate projections, epidemiological data, and socio-demographic information to anticipate health impacts and inform climate-smart decision-making.

Assess Climate–Health Linkages: Analyse how heatwaves, floods, droughts, wildfires, and climate variability affect human well-being, health systems, and population vulnerability, including identifying scientific gaps and necessary technical and methodological requirements for EO to better support climate-health research and policy development.

Develop EO-Enabled Risk Models: Use ESA CCI data records, Copernicus Sentinel mission observations, ERA5 reanalysis and other datasets to map exposure, vulnerability, to predict climnate-health threats at high resolution.

Quantify Climate-Attributable Health Burden: Compare current disease risks with counterfactual scenarios to measure the contribution of anthropogenic climate change to health outcomes such as infectious disease incidence, respiratory morbidity from fire emissions, waterborne contamination events, and healthcare system disruptions, while explicitly accounting for social inequalities, demographic trends, and adaptive capacity.

Deliver an EO-informed Climate & Health Adaptation Roadmap: Provide practical guidance aligned with WHO and UNFCCC frameworks to strengthen resilience, improve early warning systems, support extreme-event preparedness and support policy implementation. The roadmap will aim to include intuitive visual tools and satellite-based indicators.

Promote Open Science and Global Collaboration: Maintain transparency and long-term impact through open repositories, peer-reviewed publications, and partnerships with WHO, UNICEF, ICIPE, INPE (Brazil) and others the Environment Agency (UK).

Apply Knowledge in Real-World Cases: Conduct six case studies on climate-sensitive health challenges:

  • E. coli contamination in UK bathing waters
  • Leptospirosis outbreaks in Brazil
  • Malaria transmission shifts in Sudan
  • ENSO-driven dengue and leptospirosis in Sri Lanka
  • Respiratory impacts from large wildfires
  • Flood-related disruptions to health services in South Sudan

Develop EO-Enabled Risk Models: Use ESA CCI data records, Copernicus Sentinel mission observations, ERA5 reanalysis and other datasets to map exposure, vulnerability, to predict climnate-health threats at high resolution.

map - EO-detected flooded areas along the Bahr el-Jebel, South Sudan
EO-detected flooded areas along the Bahr el-Jebel, South Sudan. Flood frequency (2017–2022) is mapped using data from VIIRS and Sentinel-1, showing areas recurrently inundated over the six-year period. Higher flood frequencies appear in darker blue tones. The Jonglei Dike is shown in red. (c) GMV

Quantify Climate-Attributable Health Burden: Compare current disease risks with counterfactual scenarios to measure the contribution of anthropogenic climate change to health outcomes such as infectious disease incidence, respiratory morbidity from fire emissions, waterborne contamination events, and healthcare system disruptions, while explicitly accounting for social inequalities, demographic trends, and adaptive capacity.

Deliver an EO-informed Climate & Health Adaptation Roadmap: Provide practical guidance aligned with WHO and UNFCCC frameworks to strengthen resilience, improve early warning systems, support extreme-event preparedness and support policy implementation. The roadmap will aim to include intuitive visual tools and satellite-based indicators.

Promote Open Science and Global Collaboration: Maintain transparency and long-term impact through open repositories, peer-reviewed publications, and partnerships with WHO, UNICEF, ICIPE, INPE (Brazil) and others the Environment Agency (UK).

Project plan

The CHANGE project is organised into the following 6 work packages:

  1. Project Management and stakeholder engagement with organisations such as WHO, UNICEF, ICIPE, EA, and INPE
  2. Climate & Health Assessment to establish the scientific foundation of the project
  3. Climate-Health Case Studies (six in total)
  4. Health Impact Attribution to provide the evidence base for future adaptation and policy planning
  5. Climate & Health Adaptation Roadmap - synthesising outputs of WP1-4
  6. Outreach, Communication & Open Repository