Scottish climate change adaptation programme: progress report 2017

Part 2: Case Studies

Case Study 1 : Climate Ready Clyde Partnership - Regional Approach to Adaptation

Background and Latest Developments

The Climate Ready Clyde Partnership is a collaborative partnership initiative aimed at developing a regional structure for adapting to climate change, to accelerate work on adaptation within the Glasgow City Region. 10 partners from the City Region, comprising 6 local Councils, NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde, SPT, University of Glasgow and University of Strathclyde have formally agreed to pool their resources, alongside Scottish Government, to fund a regional secretariat, delivered by Sniffer. The secretariat will assess the risks and opportunities presented by climate change, and work with partners to develop a strategy and action plan for the City Region.

The initiative was initially brought about by Sniffer who involved core partners across the region in developing and endorsing the Vision for a Climate Ready Clyde in 2013, as part of the 'Adaptation Scotland' programme. A steering group was established, which developed a business case for a strategic, City-Region approach. Following this, the Scottish Government provided £100,000 seed funding to get Climate Ready Clyde up and running by appointing a project manager who worked with partners to develop a viable proposition for co-funding.

In total, the Scottish Government funding has directly leveraged £72,500 investment, but has also enabled the City Region to be a demonstrator for research, with £4.5m of NERC-funded research being undertaken on climate adaptation as a result.

The board to govern the next phase of Climate Ready Clyde was formed in April 2017, and the initiative will be formally launched at the European Climate Change Adaptation Conference in June 2017.

Target Objectives

The establishment of the Climate Ready Clyde initiative is aligned with the Scottish Government's Strategic Principles for adapting to climate change as set out in the SCCAP.

More broadly, the idea of the initiative is to be transformative and show that collaboration helps to improve resilience and adaptation to a changing climate brings many other positive benefits - boosting local economies, reducing inequalities, improving public realm, protecting natural resources and attracting investment.

It is hoped now that the Partnership's work will make a significant contribution towards securing the long term climate resilience of a third of Scotland's population and a city region that generates £40Bn GVA per year - a third of Scotland's economic wealth.

Through its shared understanding and collaborative focus, the initiative will support Councils, public sector agencies, business and community organisations to identify where action is needed on climate adaptation measures, and how to finance and deliver them.

Over 40 different organisations, businesses and community groups are expected to take part in the Climate Ready Clyde project, either as part of the partnership board or through wider stakeholder engagement mechanisms.

Alongside, it will develop the evidence and business case for action on adaptation across all sectors; and act as a hub for expert advice, co-ordination, capacity building and support on adaptation. The initiative will also work with other organisations to ensure that adaptation, (and the economic, social and environmental benefits it brings) are firmly articulated in the region's development plans and programmes.

The approach taken to the initiative is already beginning to provide national / international climate leadership, being featured in international publications, and featured at both the European Conference on Climate Change Adaptation, and the European Commission's 'Open European Day'. Going forward, the area-based approach will link into resilience initiatives in neighbouring parts of Scotland, and will be able to be extended across other regions of Scotland.

Working in this way provides a cost-effective way for partners to respond to the public body duty for adaptation under S44 of CC(S) Act 2009; it will help to enhance reputations as responsible bodies minimizing risk and will help deliver efficiency & financial savings.

Case Study 2 : Edinburgh Adapts - Helping Edinburgh Meet the Challenges of a Changing Climate

2016 was a momentous year for adaptation planning in Edinburgh. Supported by the Adaptation Scotland programme, the Edinburgh Sustainable Development Partnership ( ESDP) published the Edinburgh Adapts vision and action plan in December 2016.

The Action Plan runs from 2016-2020 and contains over 100 committed adaptation actions contributed by 50 partner organisations. The Vision looks even further; setting out the project partners' adaptation aims for two key landmark dates, 2025 and 2050.

As well as ensuring overall governance of adaptation in the city, the plan aims to protect and enhance Edinburgh's wildlife and green spaces, providing nature-based solutions to climate-related problems. Planning and development play a key role in ensuring the city adapts, including the use of green infrastructure to offset predicted changes in weather and rainfall and naturalising flood prevention measures when feasible. Actions involving working with communities and raising awareness of the impacts of climate change on local areas are also integral to the plan.

Edinburgh Adapts is an important example of the value of partnership working to address shared adaptation challenges. The process of developing the vision, action plan and governance arrangements has strengthened links between partners and provided a strong foundation for the future.

Implementation is already well underway with new projects on coastal change and community engagement recently receiving funding and excellent progress with raising awareness of adaptation challenges facing the city's UNESCO World Heritage site including action to support communities to improve maintenance of tenement buildings.

Edinburgh Adapts is a live process driven by an active steering group with representatives from the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh, City of Edinburgh Council, Historic Environment Scotland, Scottish Wildlife Trust, Heriot Watt University, Edinburgh World Heritage, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh College, Napier University and Adaptation Scotland.

Download the Edinburgh Adapts vision, action plan and detailed case study here: http://adaptationscotland.org.uk/get-involved/our-projects/edinburgh-adapts

Case Study 3: University of St Andrews - Climate Impact Assessment

The University of St Andrews has completed a climate impact assessment workshop with staff and senior managers from the Estates department.

The assessment has helped to identify how the University's historic and modern buildings may be impacted by climate change and, identify actions that can increase resilience.

Key findings from the workshop included:

• Current climate threats

  The Estates department identified a number of climate threats based on severe weather events that had occurred in recent years. This included high wind speeds which caused damage to the cladding of roofs, heavy rainfall resulting in surface water flooding, a storm surge that ran alongside the Estates' building and coastal erosion to cliffs that house University buildings.

• Future climate threats

  Staff noted that an increase in heavy rainfall could cause: blocked or over-topping drains as they reach full capacity; flooding of ground floors, and the deterioration of traditional stone buildings, internally and externally, as they become saturated with water. In addition, they noted that increased temperatures could cause staff discomfort on warmer days.

• Strengths

  Building maintenance is currently being managed using condition surveys, Computer Aided Facilities Management software and site knowledge. Staff referred to having a crisis management plan that details what to do in the case of a flood event. They also noted the use of backup generators in the event of power failure.

• Weaknesses

  Staff are investigating prevention of the deterioration of traditional stone buildings in a changing climate and felt more guidance was needed to better understand this element. In addition, more clarity was needed over the responsibility for the drains in town which affect University buildings.

• Opportunities

  Identifying increased heavy rainfall as a climate threat is useful for the department to be able to make improvements to, for example, the material of ground floor doors and the width of gutters, as and when funding allows. Design teams for new projects now report on how they have considered adaptation to climate change in their processes.

• What more could be done?

  Staff felt that there were preventative measures for increased heavy rainfall. This included filling and storing sandbags before a flood event occurs, preventing grease from entering and blocking drains, and clearing gutters more often. Other actions included implementing a data recording system for weather event information, embedding climate change in business continuity plans, and opening a dialogue on climate change through the introduction of a newsletter.

Completing the climate impact assessment increased awareness of the impacts of severe weather events and climate change impacts affecting the department. It laid the foundations for further work to develop an adaptation action plan and run other climate impact assessment workshops with all services and departments across the University.

Read the full case study on the Adaptation Scotland website: http://www.adaptationscotland.org.uk/how-adapt/case-studies/assessing-current-and-future-climate-threats-and-opportuniti

Case Study 4: Historic Environment Scotland - Screening for Natural Hazards to Inform a Climate Change Risk Assessment

Historic Environment Scotland ( HES) have worked in close partnership with the British Geological Survey ( BGS) and the Scottish Environment Protection Agency ( SEPA) to conduct a Climate Change Risk Assessment for the 335 Properties in Care ( PICs) on the Estate. This assessment will improve decision-making for prioritising the on-going conservation and maintenance programmes, thus ensuring the long term survival of HES monuments and buildings.

Many of the properties HES care for are situated in landscapes that are vulnerable to climate-related natural hazards. Although a number of the properties are well adapted to everyday weather events, changes in the climate are pushing the properties into unchartered territory, with many now facing challenges they were never designed to deal with. This is why this assessment was so crucially important.

The assessment was completed by using a GIS-based approach to combine asset management information with natural hazard datasets obtained from BGS and SEPA. A spatial analysis was completed by overlaying hazard layers with site specific spatial information, focusing on the area of ownership or guardianship for each site. This generated a hazard profile for each property, which was combined with information about property type, allowing an appropriate risk score to be assigned.

The analysis provided a site-specific report on natural hazards that will be made available for use by conservation architects and works managers. This will allow HES to match up the modelled data with real-life observations, site management practices, and additional information on climate impacts.

The GIS-based screening of climate related natural hazards has allowed Historic Environment Scotland to identify those sites most likely to be threatened by flooding, coastal erosion, and ground instability. The organisation is now looking at site-specific studies to further understand climate change risk.

Read the full case study on the Adaptation Scotland website:
http://www.adaptationscotland.org.uk/how-adapt/case-studies/screening-natural-hazards-inform-climate-change-risk-assessm

Case Study 5 : Climate Ready Places, including Adaptation within Charrette Projects

What's a Charrette? - The Scottish Government describes a charrette as "an interactive design process, in which the public and stakeholders work directly with a specialised design team to generate a community vision, masterplan and action plan". The charrette process takes place over a number of weeks and months. They have become an integral part of Scottish placemaking activity in the last decade, thanks to continued support from the Scottish Government.

Charrette plus® Is a charrette model developed by PAS and is delivered using a team of professional staff, volunteers and associates. It focuses specifically on aligning spatial planning with community planning. By linking community empowerment, democratic citizenship and capacity-building, the Charrette plus model supports local communities (including businesses, residents, institutions and Community Planning partners) to plan and deliver the future of their place.

PAS and Adaptation Scotland initially worked together to raise awareness of climate adaptation with planning professionals and to develop new information resources. Following this, the two organisations worked together to explore ways to include climate change adaptation as part of the Charrette plus projects delivered by PAS.

How was adaptation included in the PAS Charrette plus model? - Adaptation Scotland and PAS developed climate ready places lesson plans and resources for primary and secondary schools. PAS volunteers used these plans to run sessions in Schools across the Garnock Valley in North Ayrshire and collected feedback from young people to be included in the Charrette plus project.

PAS added a climate ready element to the Place Standard tool and provided volunteers with a briefing on climate impacts as part of preparations for the Charrette plus workshops. This enabled volunteers to help community members complete the climate ready elements of the place standard tool.

What were the lessons learned? - Supplementing the Place Standard tool with a climate ready places element was an effective way of helping people to think about how climate change might impact their community now and in the future. Young people engaged well with the climate ready places lessons and were able to feed in their views to the wider Charrette plus project.

Through the project PAS identified several opportunities to develop additional resources to engage young people in imagining climate ready places and have since worked with Adaptation Scotland to update the lesson plans and resources and publish them for teachers and partner organisations to use.

Advice for others engaging with communities? - PAS used Adaptation Scotland's existing Climate Ready Places graphics as the basis for briefing volunteers about climate change impacts and developing new climate ready place cards for the lesson plans. This climate ready places graphics are available online and provide an effective and accessible introduction to climate change impacts and could be used to help raise awareness among many different groups.

The lesson plans developed through this project are suitable to be used as part of general awareness raising and engagement on adaptation - they could be used for general educational purposes or to help young people feed in views to any type of adaptation related strategy, planning or action process.

The Place Standard tool provides an excellent framework for helping people to think about climate change impacts as part of wider aspects of place such as buildings, spaces, and transport links as well as the social aspects, for example whether people feel they have a say in decision making and influence over their surroundings.

Next steps? - Adaptation Scotland and PAS are building upon the work of their first two collaborative projects with a new project to support the creation of a city-wide adaptation strategy in Aberdeen, specifically involving young people in the process of shaping their environment.

Case Study 6 - SNH - Protecting Scotland's Pinewood from Disease

http://www.snh.gov.uk/docs/A1746713.pdf

SNH recognises that Scotland's Caledonian pinewoods will be affected by climate change and some woods are already changing.

However, the future nature of climate change impacts is still not known.

There could be some positive changes: as a result of an increase in CO2 in the atmosphere, biomass may increase giving a higher forest yield and economic value; and a new climate space (the area of land climatically suitable for a particular species or habitat) may become available for species previously at the edge of their range in Scotland.

Equally, there could be negative effects: it is possible that droughts and floods will cause stress to forest ecosystems. This may make trees more susceptible to pests and disease, and international trade or the changing climate itself may result in Scotland harbouring some new viruses, fungi or insects. Climate spaces may shift for certain tree species, or phenology - the timing of seasonal events - may change, causing species' life cycles to no longer match up, resulting in a lack of food, shelter, or other provisions at certain key times in the year (Broadmeadow & Ray, 2005).

Accordingly, it is very difficult to develop a single management approach for Caledonian pinewoods that can deliver the multiple management objectives in the face of threats which are inherently uncertain, especially given the long time-scales involved in managing woodlands for climate change.

SNH's Climate Change Action Plan states the need to "deal with uncertainty" and to plan carefully. Accordingly we welcome trials and research on a range of different management approaches. We consider it likely that different combinations of these approaches can be implemented in different pinewoods to offer the best possible national insurance against the consequences of climate change.

The identification of this 'managing-under-uncertainty' approach is only the first step, and a lot of work needs to be done to create a management approach for individual sites. The first step to implementing site management plans is to clarify the objectives and assumptions of risk, and to be clear about what trade-offs are acceptable in each situation. These will not be the same across Scotland.

Being aware of the changes that are likely to occur allows us to apply SNH's eighth adaptation principle: to plan for habitat change. No single solution will be suitable across all of Scotland, and given the uncertainties, we may need to use different approaches across Scotland to provide resilience to the possible risks.

A combination of actions, based on the needs of and uncertain threats to different forests, should offer some 'insurance' or a hedge against widespread loss or decline of Caledonian pinewoods.

Case Study 7 - SNH - Restoring Forest to Bog at RSPB Forsinard Flows

http://www.snh.gov.uk/docs/A1790788.pdf

The Peatlands Partnership's Flows to the Future Project demonstrates SNH's second climate change adaptation principle: the importance of making space for - and restoring - natural processes, allowing ecosystems to increase resilience against climate change pressures.

The Flow Country is a vast area of blanket bog - Europe's largest - found in Sutherland and Caithness. These peatlands are of national and international significance not only for the rich and varied wildlife they support but also as one of the largest stores of carbon in Britain. There is almost three times the carbon stored in the peatlands of the Flow Country than in all the forests of the UK. (Approximately 400 million tonnes of carbon is locked up in peat in the Flow Country; in comparison, all the forests and woodlands in the UK contain around 150 million tonnes.)

Blanket bog ecosystems are at risk from climate change as they are vulnerable to changes in rainfall and temperature. Bogs can also become damaged and degraded through inappropriate land management practices such as the planting of large areas of conifers that occurred here in the past. Healthy, actively growing bogs are more resilient to climate change and the SNH adaptation principle focuses on restoring the natural functions of degraded bogs.

One of the key members of the Peatlands Partnership is the RSPB and on their Forsinard Flows National Nature Reserve, they have pioneered and undertaken peatland restoration on a vast scale delivering what is probably one of the largest peatland restoration projects in the UK.

Since 2014, much of this restoration work has been undertaken through the Partnership's Heritage Lottery funded "Flows to the Future" project.

This has the ambitious aim to restore a further seven square miles of blanket bog habitat - removing forestry blocks, crushing brash and blocking furrows in areas where forestry has already been felled, and drain blocking. In addition to this, the project will also promote and develop our knowledge about the role of peat and carbon storage, and involve and connect people all over the world with this precious habitat, and in the process deliver real economic benefits to one of the least densely populated areas in Scotland.

Case Study 8 - Adapting Edinburgh's World Heritage Site

Edinburgh's World Heritage status confirms its reputation as one of the most beautiful and historically significant cities in the world. The World Heritage Site, with the medieval Old Town and Georgian New Town, provides an unforgettable experience for visitors and a much loved home for over 20,000 residents. Along with the rest of the city, the World Heritage Site is vulnerable to the impacts of climate change, with changes such as increased rainfall and severe weather events increasing the risk of damage to the historic built environment.

Edinburgh World Heritage aims to ensure that the city's World Heritage status is a dynamic force for good that benefits everyone. This includes taking early action to increase resilience and supporting communities to adapt to the impacts of climate change.

During 2016 EWH completed a building condition survey for over 1000 properties across the World Heritage Site. The survey results are being used to inform a climate risk assessment, and will be used to measure progress with sustaining and improving the condition of the World Heritage Site in the years ahead.

Alongside establishing a strong evidence base, EWH has placed community engagement at the heart of its response to ensuring that the World Heritage Site is resilient and adapts to the impacts of climate change. Work has focused on raising awareness and supporting residents to improve the maintenance of their homes.

National press and politicians were engaged as part of National Maintenance Week, leading to print and broadcast news features on the need to improve maintenance, with many references to the need to adapt to the impacts of climate change. Events and training sessions are providing residents with opportunities to find out about funding support and gain skills to help maintain their homes. Pioneering work is also under way to address barriers to maintenance by investigating the feasibility of setting up M.O.T. schemes that would support residents to carry out maintenance work through creating maintenance co-operatives.

EWH has found that awareness raising and community engagement are very powerful driving forces for change. EWH will continue to develop work to support wider adaptation efforts including working with city partners to implement the Edinburgh Adapts Vision and Action Plan.

Case Study 9 - Glasgow City Council Surface Water Management Projects

Research undertaken for the development of the Clyde and Loch Lomond ( CaLL) Flood Risk Management Strategy (December 2015) predicted that Annual Average Damages from flooding across the District are approximately £67 million annually. Damages from surface water flooding equate to £20 million of this total, and are largely concentrated in Glasgow, with 13,000 residential and non-residential properties at risk. With climate change, the frequency and severity of rainfall events that can lead to surface water flooding is likely to increase. In response to this, Glasgow City Council ( GCC) and the Metropolitan Glasgow Strategic Drainage Partnership ( MGSDP - www.mgsdp.org) are leading the delivery of Surface Water Management Plans ( SWMPs) across the city. The areas covered by the first tranche of SWMPs identified by GCC in the CaLL Local Flood Risk Management Plan are:

• Cardowan & Cockenzie St
• Garrowhill
• Croftfoot, King's Park and Overwood Dr
• Drumchapel
• Hillington / Cardonald
• Darnley Mains
• Eastern Springburn
• High Knightswood
• Fullarton Avenue

Reducing the risks and impacts of flooding, and removing drainage constraints to regeneration and development, have been identified as key enabling factors for increasing economic growth in Glasgow. This first tranche of SWMPs will be enabled through Glasgow City Region City Deal ( www.glasgowcityregion.co.uk) funding in recognition of the direct link between the impacts of flooding and economic prosperity, backed by Business Cases. By reducing the risks and impacts of flooding in these areas, the SWMPs will contribute to increased, sustainable economic growth, improved resilience, and will open previously constrained sites to regeneration and development.

Rather than deliver 'traditional' approaches to flood management - such as large, below ground pipes, storage tanks and pumping stations - the SWMPs will endeavour to deliver interventions that align with the MGSDP Vision of:

• Enhancing our urban biodiversity and landscape
• Reconnecting our waterways
• Designing for the severity of the rain
• Keeping surface water on the surface
• Creating integrated blue green networks
• Integrating urban master planning and design
• Providing sustainable and affordable drainage solutions
• And, being climate-change ready

In so doing, the SWMPs will help to transform how the city region thinks about and manages rainfall, will reduce the risks and impacts of flooding and improve water quality. Following detailed design, each SWMP will require Full Business Case approval by the Glasgow City Region City Deal Cabinet to allow construction to begin.

The consequences of flooding, as with many other climate impacts, do not observe traditional boundaries of governance and ownership. To overcome this challenge, during the ongoing design of the SWMPs, Glasgow City Council is engaging a wide range of stakeholders, including: Scottish Water, SNH, SEPA, Scottish Canals, Clyde Gateway, Forestry Commission Scotland, neighbouring Local Authorities, private landowners, businesses, and residents. Working in partnership allows the Council to identify opportunities for integrated investment, such as with Scottish Water, and ensures the interventions, when delivered, make the best use of the available public purse.

Case Study 10 - Scottish Water - Renewable Energy

Scottish Water now facilitates the generation of more renewable power than it consumes for the first time since it launched efforts to reduce its energy bill and increase renewable generation five years ago. Annual savings amounting to some £7 million are being saved on an electricity bill of over £40 million.

Scottish Water is one of the biggest users of electricity in Scotland and requires 445 Gigawatt hours ( GWh) per year across 4500 sites such as water and waste water treatment works.

Renewable power is being generated through a combination of Scottish Water's own investment in renewable energy and hosting private investment on its estate. By 2018 it is expected to produce double the amount it consumes.

SW is delivering lower carbon solutions and delivering projects that help Scotland to adapt to climate change. Examples include:

• The Shieldhall Tunnel, which is part of the £250 million of upgrades to Glasgow's wastewater system, will improve the water quality in the River Clyde, resolve many long-standing flooding problems in the Giffnock area and provide capacity for economic growth as well as the impact of climate change.
• Ayrshire resilience Scheme - to bring greater resilience in water supply to Ayrshire/
• Heat from wastewater - Borders College is now heated from heat recovered from sewage.
• Water efficiency trials - to understand how much water is used by households and therefore to understand better how to implement water efficiency measures.
• Sustainable Land Management - working with SEPA and farmers to reduce levels of pollutants in drinking water. This reduces the costs of treatment.

Case Study 11 - Adapting the Forth Road Bridge - Amey Plc

Amey : what it does: 2017 marks the opening of the new Queensferry Crossing with the Forth Road Bridge then being dedicated for public transport, cycle and walking use. The Forth Road Bridge and Queensferry crossing will then both be operated and maintained by Amey which is a large and diverse company, managing infrastructure and public services across the UK.

How climate change is already affecting how Amey operates: Although the bridges are designed to withstand most weather conditions, Bridge Control staff constantly monitor weather conditions in case drivers need to be advised to slow down, wind susceptible vehicles need to be advised against using the bridge or, in extreme cases, the bridges have to be closed to all traffic. High wind speeds already affect the Forth Road Bridge posing significant challenges to the operations staff and the thousands of drivers that travel between Fife and Edinburgh every day.

Changes Amey has made to reduce the impact of climate change :The Forth Road Bridge operations at Amey are taking a strong and proactive response to increasing awareness and managing climate risks.

They have put in place a number of systems to increase their capacity to adapt to more severe weather conditions. These include signs to inform drivers of high wind speeds, changes to practices and guidance, new materials and innovative designs to the bridge itself. Amey's procedures over the years have moved from an approach where the roads must always remain open towards an approach that accepts, and communicates to the public, that travel will not always be possible during severe weather events.

This is in line with the approach that Transport Scotland is moving towards. The construction of the new Queensferry Crossing has also provided an opportunity to incorporate changes that will allow the bridge to be more resilient to severe weather conditions and a changing climate.

These changes include using the latest and most durable materials, cables that can be replaced with more ease than on the existing FRB as it can be done as part of normal maintenance works without closing the bridge, a dehumidification system which reduces moisture and prevents corrosion, and thicker road surfacing which has a longer surface life and can be machine laid, making it easier to replace.

The biggest change incorporated into the new bridge will be wind shielding which will make the crossing less susceptible to closure during high winds. Experience of other estuarial crossings, such as the Second Severn Crossing, shows that wind barriers provide a high degree of reliability against closure.

Amey plans for the future : Amey will continue to prepare for and alleviate the impacts of climate change through its various contracts while helping staff carry out their duties more efficiently and safely.

Case Study 12 - The National Coastal Change Assessment (Dynamic Coast)

Scotland's National Coastal Change Assessment ( NCCA) which is due to be published gives agencies and local authorities a reliable overview of the risk posed by erosion along our coastline. This allows us in future to take a proactive, evidence based and plan led approach to coastal erosion.

The NCCA has compared over three thousand maps and quantified the changes that have occurred over the last 120 years along all 21,000 km of Scotland's dynamic coastline. As a result both the public sector and the public now have access to the historical and recent changes, via dynamiccoast.com. Indicative vulnerability assessments have also been developed to identify assets that may be at increased risk from erosion if present erosion rates continue and no change in management occurs.

Of the soft and erodible coast (rock coasts are excluded), 870 km has been subject to significant change since the 1970s, with 11% accreting, 12% eroding and 77% remaining stable. Compared with the historical period (1890 to 1970), the proportion of shorelines accreting has fallen almost everywhere with the proportion of eroding coast having increased, particularly on the east coast.

However, increasing stability may signal a transition from accretion to erosion and, if so, then it may highlight a window of opportunity to improve our adaptation management of the coast in advance of any future erosion increases that may result from climate change.

The NCCA enables a step change in the implementation of policies aiming to deliver sustainable and adaptation management of our coastline.

It supports multiple objectives of the SCCAP and helps deliver Scottish Planning Policy, Flood Risk Management Strategies, the Coast Protection Act as well as National and Regional Marine Plans.

Case Study 13 : Farming for a Better Climate

The Scottish Government flagship scheme for climate change in agriculture. This scheme promotes and informs on the impacts of climate change and how to both adapt to the changing climate and what can be done to reduce current emissions levels.

SG have published a series of case studies on the work it has done regarding climate change adaptation.

The Balruddery Farm case study is one example where adapting to climate change is already becoming part of routine farm business. By taking steps, such as securing water supplies for irrigation or reducing soil erosion risks, the farm is reducing the risk that predicted climate change impacts could have on the business.

http://www.sruc.ac.uk/downloads/120651/adapting_to_a_changing_climate

Case Study 14: ClimeFish West of Scotland case study

ClimeFish ^[1] is a Horizon 2020 EU project which aims to identify, assess, and propose management solutions to tackle the main impacts of climate change on fish production in Europe, with the overarching goal of delivering a Decision Support Framework designed to help stakeholders and policy makers securing a sustainable future for the European aquatic production.

This will be achieved through several consecutives steps: (i) identify the most important climate change impacts based an available literature and data, (ii) perform the required analyses to fill in our knowledge gaps on these impacts, (iii) perform biological forecasting to assess the extent to which these impacts will affect the future fish production at short-, medium-, and long-term under the various IPCC climate scenarios, (iv) develop early-warning systems to identify strategies that mitigate the risks and maximise potential opportunities resulting from climate change, (v) develop a Decision Support Framework through a cross-disciplinary approach involving researchers, managers and stakeholders.

Throughout these steps, interactions between articulated work packages ^[2] will ensure that any drawback and arising challenges will be dealt with.

The end-product delivered will be available through the European Committee for Standardisation to ensure that the ClimeFish Decision Support Framework can be used beyond the lifetime of the project.

ClimeFish includes an exhaustive geographical coverage of the European aquatic production, with a broad variety of case studies ^[3] spanning both fisheries and aquaculture sectors, and marine and freshwater environments.

One of the marine fisheries case studies considered is the shelf area off the west coast of Scotland, with a focus on demersal fish species. Although future warming in this area is expected to be relatively limited, this case study corresponds to both the southern distribution limit of cold-water species ( e.g. cod) and the northern distribution limit of warm-water species ( e.g. hake), hence the potential for significant changes in species abundance and composition which could affect the ecosystem and the fisheries that rely on it.

Current progress on the west of Scotland case study includes a foodweb ecosystem model which incorporates the effect of temperature on species' productivity, analyses on the changes in distribution of commercial fish species and associated drivers performed during the ICES FISHDISH ^[4] workshop which was co-chaired by the west of Scotland case study leader, and a contribution to drafting the advice resulting from the FISHDISH workshop in which the west of Scotland case study leader was also involved.

Further analyses on spatial indices of both commercial and non-commercial species as well as changes in growth patterns are currently ongoing.

The research undertaken in the west of Scotland case study is relevant for the Scottish Climate Change Adaptation Programme, and it is hoped that ClimeFish can contribute towards developing a Climate Change Adaptation Strategy for Scottish fisheries.

Marine Scotland has already been involved in ClimeFish activities as a policy stakeholder for the west of Scotland case study.

This interaction proved fruitful beyond expectations and it became evident that a future pro-active collaboration between ClimeFish and Marine Scotland could benefit both parties in tackling Climate Change impacts in Scottish fisheries.

Case Study 15: ClimateXChange Adaptation Fellowships

The adaptation research undertaken by ClimateXChange supports the evidence needs of Scottish Government's various policy teams.

In this respect, two post-doctoral research fellowships have been funded as the foundation of CXC's research capacity in particular to support the development of the second SCCAP.

One fellowship is on adaptation science, with particular responsibilities for data collection and analysis, gap analysis, supporting the extension of the CXC indicators, interpreting the indicators for policy users and working closely with SEPA and the MET office.

The second fellowship is on adaptation policy and will involve interpreting and presenting CCRA risks for the adaptation policy community, researching questions on policy design and delivery and exploring methods to demonstrate / quantify the benefits of adaptation.