Climate Change Adaptation

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Preparing for unavoidable climate change

Although the effects of climate change are global its impacts are felt locally and are affected by physical, social and economic factors.

Some degree of climate change is now unavoidable even if greenhouse gas emissions fall dramatically. Our historic greenhouse gas emissions and the persistence of these gases in the atmosphere, as well as the slowly increasing warming of the oceans, make this inevitable. So we are guaranteed a certain amount of unavoidable climate change.

What climate change means for the south west

Unavoidable climate change is expected to result in the UK experiencing hotter and drier summers (leading to drought), warmer and wetter winters (leading to flooding), rising sea levels and more severe weather (e.g. storms).

Further details of likely future climate change impacts can be found on the UK Climate Projections website:

These events could create risks and opportunities which could include:

• higher summer temperatures will have implications for human comfort, overheating and heat stress;
• higher summer temperatures will lead to increased demand for cooling, but higher winter temperatures are likely to reduce winter energy bills;
• changing patterns of rainfall may affect flood risk, water resources and availability and also water quality;
• an increase in flooding may lead to loss of life, injury, disease, damage to buildings and contamination from sewage;
• subsidence and heave risks may increase for clay soils, due to higher temperatures, lower summer rainfall and increased evapotranspiration; and
• more intense rainfall events could lead to drainage systems (roof drainage, sewer systems, carriageway drainage and so on) becoming unable to cope, resulting in flash flooding.

These examples are taken from Climate Change Adaptation by Design 2007 published by the Town and Country Planning Association.

To find out how climate change will affect the south west see the South West Climate Change Impacts Partnership.

What are the impacts of extreme weather on key services?

Wiltshire Council has begun the process of assessing the potential threats and opportunities across its services from climate change.

A Local Climate Impacts Profile (LCLIP) 314kb has been complied to identify the most frequent weather events and those services that have been most affected by recent severe weather events directly and indirectly. The major weather event types were excessive rainfall and flooding, frost, snow and ice, wind, and high temperatures and heat waves. The most frequent impacts of these events were infrastructure disruption which had a direct impact on frontline service delivery as well as indirectly impacting all services through access to offices or workplaces.

How the council is preparing for unavoidable climate change

Everyone can help to tackle climate change and prepare for the impacts. The council is currently working towards the development of an adaptation action plan as part of the overarching ECO Strategy 2011-2020. This will set out:

• the risk assessment for future climate projections
• what the priority areas are
• the action being taken to address priorities
• how risks will be continually assessed and monitored in the future.

Considering climate change adaptation and risk assessment should be a continuous process and the council’s progress on this process of ‘planning to adapt’ is detailed in the following report.

• Wiltshire Climate Change Adaptation Plan – Level 1 Report April 2010 237kb
• Appendix 1 – Summary of initial consultation responses 69kb
• Appendix 2 – Document review 300kb
• Appendix 3 – Local climate impact profile (LCIP) for Wiltshire 314kb
• Appendix 4 – Likely climate changes in Wiltshire 554kb
• Appendix 5 – Detailed project plan 116kb
• Appendix 6 – Wiltshire NI188 self assessment matrix April 2010 43kb

An initial project plan was published in December 2009 setting out the approach for tackling NI188. This document is available for download:

• Wiltshire Climate Change Adaptation Plan - Project Initiation Document 102kb

What you can do?

Everyone has a part to play in adapting to the effects of climate change. The following websites contain some excellent help on how you can do this in your day to day lives:

• The Environment Agency is the leading organisation for flooding in the UK. They can help you to prepare for a flood and if you sign up to the free flood warning service, when a flood is likely to happen they’ll let you know about it.
• The Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) provides advice for communities on climate change adaptation.
• Advice and guidance from DEFRA about how to prepare your business for climate change.
• Read the introductory guide for adapting your business to a changing climate on the UK Climate Impact Programme (UKCIP) website.
• Guidance on adapting your business to a changing climate from the Business Link website.
• Practical tools to help you make decisions to adapt your business on the UKCIP website.

Last updated: 9 March 2011