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<front>
<journal-meta>
<journal-id journal-id-type="publisher">EGUsphere</journal-id>
<journal-title-group>
<journal-title>EGUsphere</journal-title>
<abbrev-journal-title abbrev-type="publisher">EGUsphere</abbrev-journal-title>
<abbrev-journal-title abbrev-type="nlm-ta">EGUsphere</abbrev-journal-title>
</journal-title-group>
<issn pub-type="epub"></issn>
<publisher><publisher-name>Copernicus Publications</publisher-name>
<publisher-loc>Göttingen, Germany</publisher-loc>
</publisher>
</journal-meta>
<article-meta>
<article-id pub-id-type="doi">10.5194/egusphere-2026-4656</article-id>
<title-group>
<article-title>An integrated framework for wildfire risk assessment under climate change: empirical validation and application in Greece</article-title>
</title-group>
<contrib-group><contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Karali</surname>
<given-names>Anna</given-names>
<ext-link>https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7245-8414</ext-link>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff1">
<sup>1</sup>
</xref>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff2">
<sup>2</sup>
</xref>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff4">
<sup>4</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Hatzaki</surname>
<given-names>Maria</given-names>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff2">
<sup>2</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Varotsos</surname>
<given-names>Konstantinos V.</given-names>
<ext-link>https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9483-908X</ext-link>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff1">
<sup>1</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Koliou</surname>
<given-names>Aristea</given-names>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff3">
<sup>3</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Fyllas</surname>
<given-names>Nikolaos</given-names>
<ext-link>https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5651-5578</ext-link>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff3">
<sup>3</sup>
</xref>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff4">
<sup>4</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Antoniou</surname>
<given-names>Varvara</given-names>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff5">
<sup>5</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Giannakopoulos</surname>
<given-names>Christos</given-names>
<ext-link>https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1822-7716</ext-link>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff1">
<sup>1</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
</contrib-group><aff id="aff1">
<label>1</label>
<addr-line>Institute for Environmental Research and Sustainable Development, National Observatory of Athens, Lofos Koufou, 15236 Palaia Penteli, Athens, Greece</addr-line>
</aff>
<aff id="aff2">
<label>2</label>
<addr-line>Section of Geography and Climatology, Department of Geology and Environment, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, University Campus, 15784 Zografou, Athens, Greece</addr-line>
</aff>
<aff id="aff3">
<label>3</label>
<addr-line>Section of Ecology and Taxonomy, Department of Biology, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Athens, University Campus, 15784 Zografou, Athens, Greece</addr-line>
</aff>
<aff id="aff4">
<label>4</label>
<addr-line>Biodiversity Conservation Laboratory, Department of Environment, University of the Aegean, University Hill, 81100 Mytilene, Greece</addr-line>
</aff>
<aff id="aff5">
<label>5</label>
<addr-line>School of Rural, Surveying and Geoinformatics Engineering, National Technical University of Athens, University Campus, 15780 Zografou Athens, Greece</addr-line>
</aff>
<pub-date pub-type="epub">
<day>07</day>
<month>09</month>
<year>2026</year>
</pub-date>
<volume>2026</volume>
<fpage>1</fpage>
<lpage>35</lpage>
<permissions>
<copyright-statement>Copyright: &#x000a9; 2026 Anna Karali et al.</copyright-statement>
<copyright-year>2026</copyright-year>
<license license-type="open-access">
<license-p>This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. To view a copy of this licence, visit <ext-link ext-link-type="uri"  xlink:href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/</ext-link></license-p>
</license>
</permissions>
<self-uri xlink:href="https://egusphere.copernicus.org/preprints/2026/egusphere-2026-4656/">This article is available from https://egusphere.copernicus.org/preprints/2026/egusphere-2026-4656/</self-uri>
<self-uri xlink:href="https://egusphere.copernicus.org/preprints/2026/egusphere-2026-4656/egusphere-2026-4656.pdf">The full text article is available as a PDF file from https://egusphere.copernicus.org/preprints/2026/egusphere-2026-4656/egusphere-2026-4656.pdf</self-uri>
<abstract>
<p>Climate change is increasing the frequency and severity of wildfires across the Mediterranean, posing growing risks to ecosystems, infrastructure and human communities. Robust methodologies for assessing wildfire risk under both present and future climate conditions are therefore essential to support climate change adaptation. In this study, we develop and empirically validate an integrated wildfire risk assessment framework for Greece following the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change risk concept. Wildfire hazard, exposure and vulnerability are represented through climate, environmental and socioeconomic indicators, while alternative hazard representations and aggregation approaches were systematically evaluated against observed wildfire occurrence to identify the most accurate methodological configuration. The validated framework was then applied to assess wildfire risk for the reference period (1995&amp;ndash;2014) and under SSP2-4.5 and SSP5-8.5 scenarios for the near (2041&amp;ndash;2060) and distant (2081&amp;ndash;2100) future. The results demonstrated that aggregation behaviour plays a critical role in determining the predictive performance of composite wildfire risk indices, with an Ordered Weighted Averaging (OWA) approach providing a statistically significant improvement over conventional linear aggregation. Analysis of component contributions identified hazard as the dominant contributor to wildfire risk across most municipalities, although exposure and vulnerability remained important determinants of the final risk patterns. Future projections indicated a widespread increase in wildfire risk throughout Greece, with the largest increases occurring under the high-end SSP5-8.5 scenario in the late century. The proposed framework provides a transparent and empirically validated basis for wildfire risk assessment that can support climate change adaptation planning at national and regional scales.</p>
</abstract>
<counts><page-count count="35"/></counts>
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