Ahmed, I., van Esch, M., Petrović, A., van der Hoeven, F. (2026). Climate Risk Management, 51.
“Heatwave vulnerability is not just about who is exposed and where — it is also about people’s capability to respond.”
Moving beyond exposure-centric epistemology, the new paper by Istiaque Ahmed, Marjolein van Esch, Ana Petrović, and Frank van der Hoeven positions Behavioural Adaptation (the first line of defence) to (re)conceptualise heatwave vulnerability in temperate urban contexts through a rigorous sequential mixed-methods approach.
The study examines how people adapt behaviourally to extreme heat in Dutch urban areas, and why adaptive capacity is shaped less by individual choice than by social, structural, and spatial conditions. Drawing on in-depth interviews and a nationwide urban survey (N = 1,849), they show how housing tenure, urban density, gender, and household composition shape everyday heat adaptation — revealing behavioural adaptation opportunity as a justice concern.
