Tracing Climate Risk Knowledge from Local Priorities to Adaptation Visions: Linking Hazard Evidence and Socioeconomic Vulnerability across Eight European Metropolitan Regions

Climate risk depends not only on hazard intensity but also on exposure and on the capacity of societies to anticipate, absorb, adapt to and transform in response to climate shocks and stresses. Yet how socioeconomic vulnerability shapes the translation of locally salient hazards into adaptation priorities remains poorly understood, particularly in metropolitan regions with contrasting institutional capacities. We trace how climate-risk knowledge evolved in the eight metropolitan case study areas of the Horizon Europe CARMINE project: Athens, Barcelona, Birmingham, Bologna, Brasov, Funen-Odense, Leipzig and Prague. The pathway moves from local risk articulation in Living Lab workshops, through observed hazard characterisation, to socioeconomic contextualisation and stakeholder-developed 2050 adaptation visions. A socioeconomic vulnerability index combining sensitivity with structural resilience capacities (institutions, health, labour markets, skills, innovation and economic resources) is computed for 1,499 European regions at the third level of the Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics and analysed for spatial autocorrelation. Vulnerability is strongly clustered, with hotspots in south-eastern Europe and the Mediterranean south. Athens and Brasov lie within the south-eastern hotspot, Funen-Odense in a coldspot and the remaining areas in transitional positions. Relating priority hazards to the most relevant vulnerability pillars, we classify the focal-hazard configurations as compounded in Athens, Barcelona, Bologna and Brasov, latent in Prague and managed in Funen-Odense and Leipzig. Similar hazards thus constitute different adaptation problems depending on the vulnerability context; in Barcelona and Bologna, compounded risk stems from weak institutions rather than social sensitivity. The hazard and vulnerability evidence confirmed, qualified or broadened locally articulated priorities. We draw implications for multi-level adaptation governance, for funding criteria that account for capacity gaps, and for co-production as an iterative evidence process rather than one-off consultation.