Background and methodology for pilot studies
Natural England is working to deliver a natural environment that is healthy now and in the future, enjoyed by people and used sustainably. However, the natural environment is changing, particularly as a consequence of land use change and climate change.
While the reduction of greenhouse gases is essential to limit the extent of climate change, some impacts of climate change are now unavoidable. The natural environment is likely to be vulnerable to these impacts and it is therefore important to ensure that it has the capacity to adapt. Without such adaptive capacity, we put at risk our rich heritage of landscapes, ecosystems and wildlife.
Natural England therefore needs to look ahead to secure the future of the natural environment. One way in which Natural England is achieving this is through the Character Area Climate Change Project.
The purpose of the Character Area Climate Change Project is to identify the vulnerability of environmental assets and features in specific landscape areas of England and the appropriate adaptation responses for those areas. The results of the project will help Natural England develop landscape-scale adaptation strategies that will enable us to maintain the benefits we obtain from an ecosystem or landscape in the face of inevitable changes.
Phase 1
The project focused on four National Character Areas (NCAs), selected to represent a range of habitats and landscapes that are vulnerable to the impacts of climate change in different ways.
The four pilot areas were:
Cumbria High Fells (North West) – a mountainous landscape likely to be vulnerable to an increase in temperatures.
Shropshire Hills (West Midlands) – a typical, fragmented farmed landscape, likely to be vulnerable to an increase in temperature and decrease in rainfall.
Dorset Downs and Cranborne Chase (South West) – a chalk grassland landscape, likely to be vulnerable to drought.
The Broads (East of England) – a low-lying wetland landscape likely to be vulnerable to coastal erosion and sea level rise.
Phase 2
Pilots will trial a vulnerability-led approach, starting with the asset and its characteristics and identifying how they may be vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. The aim of the project is for Natural England to deliver a natural environment which has the capacity to adapt to change.
The phase two pilots are:
Sherwood Forest (East Midlands)- rolling countryside, with well established woodlands, with a strong coal mining heritage- vulnerable to increase in temperature and decrease in rainfall
South East Northumberland Coastal Plain (North East)- flat landscape with coastline of sand dunes and rocky outcrops, scarred by heavily industrial past- vulnerable to tidal and fluvial flooding
Humberhead Levels (Yorkshire) - broad floodplain of navigable rivers, important area of lowland peat - vulnerable to flooding.
London- urban green space dominated by the influence of the river Thames- vulnerable to flooding and increased summer temperatures.
South Downs ( south East)- chalk landscape of rolling arable fields and close-cropped grassland on the bold scarps, rounded open ridges-likley to be vulnerable to drought
The Methodology
The Phase 2 pilot studies have adopted a “vulnerability approach” rather than starting with climate data and looking at the impact of this on natural environmental asset, as in phase one. This approach defines vulnerability as a function of exposure of a system to the impacts of climate change and the capacity of the system to adapt.
The phase two pilots therefore do not use one specific climate change scenario to identity adaptation responses as it is highly uncertain what the future will look like. Instead the project aims to develop responses which are valid for a broad range of climate variables suggested by the UKCIP 2009 scenarios (e.g. increase in winter rainfall, increase in frequency of storms and extreme events such as heat-wave or intense rainfall).
These broad climatic variables are tabulated on our projections page.
In assessing the vulnerability of key environmental assets, a series of templates have been devised to capture individual assets and assess their likely vulnerability to key climatic variables. These templates include direct and indirect impacts, as well as proposed response to enhance the adaptive capacity of the asset. Consideration of indirect impacts enables the templates to capture social and economic responses to climate change and its effects, which may have a greater impact on a particular feature than the climatic change itself.
The asset templates are as follows:
Biodiversity
Geodiversity
Soils
Historic environment
Landscape
Access and Recreation
In addition the Phase 2 pilots also includes a specific assessment of how Ecosystem Services might be vulnerable to the impacts of climate change and the responses required to ensure that these services can be maintained in the face of change. This assessment is being carried out alongside the thematic assessment.
The ecosystem services assessment is an alternative way of looking at and evaluating the same systems / set of environmental assets that have been identified in the thematic assessment, but also ensures that other drivers which are happening at the same time as climate change such as a move towards renewable energy are captured.
The templates will be used to construct a narrative assessing the overall impact of climate change on a particular theme and the overall vulnerability of specific assets.
Consultation is a key part of the approach. Draft templates are being shared with external partners at an early stage to both peer review the content but also provide additional data to enhance the templates. Workshops involving external stakeholders will be held to help Natural England get a better view and understanding on which assets and services in the area are valued by the people that live in and use it, what other organisations are doing with regards to climate change adaptation, and how these and possible additional responses might interact with each other.
This workshop will be used to help develop an integrated response strategy which will draw on the templates to develop a list of priority adaptation actions which are aimed at either reducing the vulnerability of the most valued assets and services in the Character Area or delivering benefits for multiple asset types and ecosystem services.
Ultimately we envisage the list of priority actions will include those actions which address the vulnerability of multiple assets or ecosystem services (‘win-win’) and those whose costs are low, but potential benefits are high (‘low regrets’). These actions are likely to deliver best value for money and should therefore be prioritised.
A key part of the methodology is that all the priority actions will also be screened to identify conflicts and synergies with other natural environmental assets. For example, historic environment assets such as earthworks may be obscured by habitat creation in response to the vulnerability of biodiversity assets to climate change.
Following completion of the final report, Natural England will continue to work with partners on developing an implementation framework for priority actions.
