Building Knowledge for a Changing Climate: collaborative research to understand and adapt to the impacts of climate change on infrastructure, the built environment and utilities

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Published by Newcastle University NE1 7RU

Copyright Newcastle University 2007

ISBN 978-07017-0213-7

Disclaimer statement

Whilst every effort has been made to ensure the accuracy

of the information supplied herein, Newcastle Universitycannot be held responsible for any errors or omissions.

Unless otherwise indicated, opinions expressed herein are

those of the authors.

Copyright statement

This publication (excluding logos) may be reproduced freeof charge in any format or medium for research, private

study or for circulation within an organisation. This is

subject to it being reproduced accurately and not used in

a misleading context. The material must be acknowledgedas copyright and the publication should be referenced as:

Walsh, C.L., Hall, J.W., Street, R.B., Blanksby, J., Cassar,

M., Ekins, P., Glendinning, S., Goodess, C.M., Handley,

J., Noland, R. and Watson, S.J. Building Knowledge

for a Changing Climate: collaborative research to

understand and adapt to the impacts of climate change

on infrastructure, the built environment and utilities.Newcastle University, March 2007.

For further information contact:

Dr Claire Walsh, School of Civil Engineering and

Geosciences, Newcastle University.email: [email protected].

all background images copyright christine jeans

except pages 11, 36, 55, 56, 57, 60, 61


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Preface

Climate change is projected to have a signicant impact upon buildings,

infrastructure and utilities. As it is essential that these systems are designed

to last for decades, so it is of the utmost importance include climate change in

their planning, design and operations. In order to plan effectively for the future,

researchers, regulators, policy-makers and decision-makers need to work togetherto determine future challenges and to develop appropriate adaptation options.

The Building Knowledge for a Changing Climate (BKCC) programme supported

by EPSRC and UKCIP involved researchers and stakeholders from the outset in

dening and undertaking a portfolio of nine projects related to climate change and

the built environment. The programme had a number of generic objectives:

to better understand potential impacts and adaptation measures for climate

change on the built environment, transport and the utilities;

to inform stakeholders on how to adapt successfully to impacts of climate change;

and

to inform the research community on the research challenges in implementingthese adaptation strategies.

An over-arching Stakeholder Forum has kept the projects focused on solutions-driven research and has advised where BKCC outputs themselves can be applied

more widely. In order to achieve an effective sharing of knowledge between projects

and with stakeholders, the programme was coordinated through an IntegratingFramework which included a data-management group to facilitate data acquisition

and storage.

This publication reports the BKCC programme and presents results from the portfolio

of nine projects. It aims to inform a range of stakeholders whether they be policy-

makers, decision-makers, planners or designers. Further details of the researchresults can be found in the more detailed publications cited in this report.

The projects have advanced knowledge of the impact of climate change on

urban drainage, engineered slopes, the electricity supply industry, the aviation

industry, historic buildings and infrastructure, as well as the urban environment

more generally. The programme has delivered new insights into how to reduceclimate related risk and increase resilience in the built environment, includingsoft engineering solutions with urban greenspace. Specialised climate and socio-

economic scenarios have been developed along with risk assessment techniques.

A summary of each of the projects is given which provides context to the projects,

states the aim and objectives of the projects, provides an overview of the project

methodology, highlights the key results of the research and suggests how the resultsrelate to policy and practice.

Each of the projects has resulted in new insights and important recommendations.

However, unlike climate science, which generates headline-grabbing results,

the science and practice of adaptation cannot be summarised simply. It involves

carefully weighing up options, costs and risks within the context of specic locations

and systems. Understanding the vulnerabilities of engineering systems and

proposing modications to make them more robust and resilient involves carefulanalysis and skilled engineering judgement. Those skills are not widespread in

practice and one of the contributions of the BKCC programme has been to train a

new cohort of young researchers in methods that can be transferred into practice.

The BKCC programme has certainly not solved all the problem of adaptinginfrastructure systems and the built environment to climate change. It was not

able to cover all infrastructure sectors with the BKCC programme. Furthermore,

our understanding of the challenges presented by climate change is itself rapidly

evolving. This report therefore concludes by summarising some of the challenges

and research questions that remain in adapting to a changing climate in the built

environment.

This report is one of the outputs of the EPSRC funded project Sustaining Knowledge

for a Changing Climate (SKCC), which will sustain the researcher and end user

community assembled in the BKCC programme. SKCC will develop a user-ledplan for future research into the impacts of climate change on the built environment

and infrastructure and development of adaptation options. To become involved in

developing that research plan, visit the SKCC web site at http://www.k4cc.org/


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Introduction

Climate change is projected to have a signicant impact upon buildings, infrastructure and utilities.

Decision-makers need a much larger knowledge base in order to plan effectively for the future. To

achieve this, researchers, regulators, policy makers and decision-makers need to work together

so that this knowledge can be generated and then utilised to maximum advantage in developingclimate change adaptation strategies.

Infrastructure for the built environment is typically designed and constructed

to be operational over a long time period, meaning that knowledge of future

conditions and integration of that knowledge in building and infrastructure,

design and operations are essential. The impacts of climate change are likely

to become increasingly evident and more prevalent in the coming decades.

Therefore, unless we start building this into current design and practice, theconsequences could be severe. Planners, designers, architects and engineers,

and those responsible for infrastructure, all need to consider and address these

climate change risks.

Key research issues include:

How can existing buildings and

urban areas be adapted to cope

with new climate and weather

extremes, when they were built

many decades or even centuries

ago?

How should drainage systems in urban

areas and on transport networks

be modied to cope with changingpatterns and intensity of rainfall?

How can cooling systems bedesigned to cope with warmer

weather, while minimising energy

use?

Through a portfolio of nine projects

EPSRC and UKCIP supported aprogramme of research: Building

Knowledge for a Changing Climate

(BKCC), which has advanced

knowledge of the impacts of

climate change on urban drainage,

engineered slopes, the electricitysupply industry, the aviation industry,

historic buildings and infrastructure

and the urban environment more

generally. Specialised climate and

socio-economic scenarios have

been developed along with riskassessment techniques.

Now that BKCC is complete, EPSRC

have funded a follow-on initiative

entitled Sustaining Knowledge for a

Changing Climate (SKCC) with theaim of further disseminating results

from BKCC and preparing the ground

for future research. This publication,

which forms part of the SKCC project,

reports the results from each of the

nine BKCC projects and describesthe contribution each project has

made to improving practice in climate

impact studies and adaptation

decision making. Furthermore the

report outlines research challenges

that remain in adapting to a changingclimate in the built environment. This

report is aimed to inform a range of

stakeholders whether they be policy-

makers, decision-makers, plannersor designers. Details of the researchsummarised here can be found in the

papers and reports cited at the end of

each chapter.

Contents

Introduction ......................................................................................... 2

Building Knowledge for a Changing Climate ....................................... 3

A changing climate .............................................................................. 4

The BKCC Integrating Framework and Stakeholder Forum ............... 6

BETWIXT: high resolution weather scenarios ..................................... 8

BESEECH: socio-economic scenarios ................................................ 14

CRANIUM: risk management .............................................................. 22

AUDACIOUS: urban drainage ............................................................. 36

ASCCUE: urban planning ................................................................... 44

BIONICS: slope stability ...................................................................... 54

EHF: heritage ...................................................................................... 58

GENESIS: energy ................................................................................ 64

Impact of climate change on UK Air Transport .................................... 72

Challenges and research questions for the future ............................... 75

List of contacts ..................................................................................... 76

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In 2001 EPSRC and UKCIPrecognised the need for a joint

initiative to stimulate multi-disciplinary

research on the impacts of climate

change on infrastructure, the

built environment and utilities. Anew collaborative approach was

developed for bringing together

researchers and decision-makers.

During late 2001, two stakeholder

workshops were held (in London and

Edinburgh), with the aim of obtainingstakeholder views and identifying

the main research questions of

concern from the point of view of

decision makers. At the same time,

researchers and stakeholders were

both invited to submit expressions ofinterest outlining what they believed

were the main research issues.Coastal and river ood defence were

excluded from this initiative as they

were being covered elsewhere byEPSRC and others.

A further workshop in early 2002

brought together the research and

stakeholder communities to develop a

shared research agenda, from which

eight main topic areas emerged:urban drainage, urban environments

and planning, energy and other

utilities, transport, buildings, heritage,

risk management and societal issues.With respect to this latter topic, inaddition to inevitable future socio-

economic change, societal issues

include the indirect impacts resultingfrom individuals and organisations

themselves responding to a changing

climate. At present, our knowledge of

many of these changes in behaviour

and attitudes is rather speculative.These issues therefore deserve

further research so that they can

be integrated within adaptation

strategies in each topic area.

EPSRC initially allocated 2million

of research funding for the jointinitiative, and this has been used

to fund consortia-based projects in

ve of the areas identied above.

It was also decided to fund further

development of high-resolutionweather datasets based upon the

UKCIP02 climate change scenariosas a general service to all projects

and further work on socio-economic

scenarios. EPSRC continued to

welcome proposals for climate-related projects and two further

projects, on earthworks slope stability

and air transport, were admitted into

the BKCC portfolio with funds from

EPSRCs standard responsive mode

funding mechanism.

From the outset, it was considered

important that the initiative should

have an integrating framework to link

together the portfolio of individual

projects. This would enable cross-sectoral issues to emerge and also

Figure 1 The Integrating Framework

provide a basis to share informationon generic topics such as societal

issues. In addition, it was also

considered that a stakeholder forum

was needed to allow decision-makers

the opportunity to become engagedwithin the overall initiative, as well

as actively involved with individual

projects.

Concurrently, the Department of

Trade and Industry (DTI) initiated

research on the many issues relatingto adapting buildings for climate

change. To develop improved links

between these projects and those

funded under the EPSRC/UKCIP

initiative, the DTI research projectswere incorporated within the

Integrating Framework (Figure 1).The collaborative approach to

research involving university

researchers and stakeholders has

been so successful that in 2006EPSRC decided to fund a follow-on

initiative, Sustaining Knowledge for

a Changing Climate (SKCC), with

the aim of sustaining the community

of researchers and practitioners and

preserving the research capacity thatBKCC had cultivated, with a view to

addressing the many outstanding

research challenges that climate

change still presents to the built

environment, infrastructure andutilities.

Building Knowledge for a Changing Climate

BETWIXT:High resolution

weather scenarios

CRANIUM:Risk management

BESEECH:Socio-economic

aspects

Stakeholder

forum

Widerworld

Integrating Framework

AUDACIOUS:Urban drainage

GENESIS:Energy

BIONICS:Slope stability

SUBR:IMSustainable Urban Brownfield Regeneration

Integrated Management

ASCCUE:

Urban planning

Engineering

Historic Futures:Heritage

Impacts of climate

change on airtransport

DTI PiI

Climate changeprojects

SKCC

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A changing cl imate

The vast majority of scientists agree that the changes in climate

we are now experiencing portend much more serious changes in

the future.

By modifying the natural radiation

balance of the earth through emission

of greenhouse gases such as carbon

dioxide, we have initiated a long-

term climatic experiment. As a more

enlightened view emerges, the UKand other countries are beginning to

develop successful policies to reduce

these emissions, but nevertheless we

are already committed to signicant

climate change. Understanding

the consequences of the projected

changes and developing effectivesustainable responses should

therefore be a major research

imperative.

In 2002, UKCIP published its latest

Climate Change Scenarios for the

UK (UKCIP02), based upon analysis

by the Hadley Centre and TyndallCentre. These scenarios provided

a range of future climate change

projections that reect dependence

on the future levels of greenhouse

gas emissions. The UKCIP02 report

describes the changes to climate thatwe are experiencing now, such as

the general pattern of warming and

increased intensity of winter rainfall,

and how these may accelerate in the

future. By the 2050s (2031 - 2060),average annual temperatures are

likely to have increased by 1-3C,

together with a likely shift towards

drier summers and wetter winters

over much of the country. Other

climate variables, such as radiation,wind, humidity and evaporation,

will also be inuenced and undergo

variations in seasonal changes. Sealevel rise will provide an increasing

challenge to our coastal areas.

Inevitably, such changes will have

major consequences for the built

environment, transport and utilities,

as indeed they are now wherechanges are already evident. The

risk from climate-related events such

as ooding, drought, wind-storm

and heat-waves is likely to increase,

posing important issues for planning,

design and maintenance. In addition,changes in general weather patterns

will require proactive strategies to

ensure and enhance quality of life,either at work or home, or when

travelling.

Our knowledge of climate change is

rapidly evolving. The IPCCs fourth

assessment report, published in2007, reviews the consensus of

global scientic opinion on climate

change, its impacts and potential

mitigation. In 2008 UKCIP will

publish its UK 21st Century Climate

Scenarios or UKCIP08 for short.UKCIP08 will be based on a large

ensemble of Hadley Centre climatemodel runs, and the nal results will

also incorporate information from

single model runs of other IPCC

climate models. Together these willprovide a statistical distribution (i.e.

a range of plausible changes with an

estimated likelihood of occurrence)

for each emissions scenario. The

use of ensembles will allow theUKCIP08 output to be described

in probabilistic terms, which is

better-suited to risk-based decision-

making for adaptation. It will present

opportunities for improved decisionmaking but also will challengedecision makers to think carefully

about their attitudes to risk. BKCC

has begun to pave the way for the

use of probabilistic scenarios in the

built environment, infrastructure

and utilities sectors, and the use ofprobabilistic scenarios is a major

theme within the SKCC programme.

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Figure 2 Projected future temperature changes under the UKCIP02 Climate Change Scenarios for the thirty-yearperiods centred on the 2020s, 2050s and 2080s. The Low Emissions and High Emissions scenarios are both shown to

indicate the range of uncertainty. All of the scenarios show a signicant warming which is more pronounced towards the

south-east.

Mean temperaturechange C

4.5

4.0

3.5

3.0

2.5

2.01.5

1.0

0.5

Low

emissions

Highemissions

Summer

2020s 2050s 2080s

51N

54N

57N

60N

51N

54N

57N

60N

9W 6W 3W 0 3E 9W 6W 3W 0 3E 9W 6W 3W 0 3E

Low

emissions

Highemissions

Winter

2020s 2050s 2080s

51N

54N

57N

60N

51N

54N

57N

60N

9W 6W 3W 0 3E 9W 6W 3W 0 3E 9W 6W 3W 0 3E

Figure 3 Projected future changes in precipitation under the UKCIP02 Climate Change Scenarios using the samescheme as for Figure 2. The scenarios suggest a signicant shift towards wetter winters and drier summers in the future.

This could have serious implications with regard to drought in summer and problems related to ooding in winter.

51N

54N

57N

60N

51N

54N

57N

60N

Low

emissions

Highem

issions

Precipitationchange (%)

Changes withinnatural variability

Winter

30

25

20

15

10

0

-10

-15

-20

-30

-40

-50

2020s 2050s 2080s

9W 6W 3W 0 3E 9W 6W 3W 0 3E 9W 6W 3W 0 3E

51N

54N

57N

60N

51N

54N

57N

60N

Low

emissions

Highem

issions

Summer

2020s 2050s 2080s

9W 6W 3W 0 3E 9W 6W 3W 0 3E 9W 6W 3W 0 3E

Figure 4 Projected future changes in soil moisture content under the UKCIP02 Climate Change Scenarios using the

same scheme as Figure 2, but for Summer and Autumn. The presence of drier, more compact soils for a much longer

part of the year will have major consequences for built infrastructure. Other seasons of the year show less dramatic

changes, with the possibility of more waterlogged ground in winter due to higher moisture content.

Low

emissions

Highemissions

Percentchange (%)

Autumn

2020s 2050s 2080s

0

-10

-20

-30

-40

-50

-60

Low

emissions

Highemissions

Summer

2020s 2050s 2080s

51N

54N

57N

60N

51N

54N

57N

60N

9W 6W 3W 0 3E 9W 6W 3W 0 3E 9W 6W 3W 0 3

51N

54N

57N

60N

51N

54N

57N

60N

9W 6W 3W 0 3E 9W 6W 3W 0 3E 9W 6W 3W 0 3E

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The BKCC Integrating Framework and Stakeholder Forum

Each of the BKCC projects involved

partnerships of researchers anddecision-makers, who together

shaped the research from the outset.

The intention was to ensure that the

research would deliver results thatcould be applied to real-world climate

adaptation problems. To support thiseffort:

An over-arching Stakeholder

Forum was established which

aimed to keep the projects

focussed on solutions-driven

research and provided advice asto opportunities where the BKCC

outputs could be applied more

widely;

Systematic arrangements were

put in place to ensure high levelsof integration and data sharing

between the projects at all stages

so that results could be connected

and compared. For instance, a

set of case study locations wereagreed by all projects; and

Some of the BKCC projects

(e.g. BETWIXT and BESEECH)

provided data and methodologies

that were required by the other

projects contributing to heightenedintegration. In addition, the projects

also made use of existing UKCIPtools and techniques.

The BKCC portfolio of researchprojects introduced several

innovative ways of working together

that participants considered

essential to its effective running

and that many believe could beapplied to any group of researchprojects working on a common

theme. These innovations were

realised through two mechanisms

an Integrating Framework and

a Stakeholder Forum. These twomechanisms were introduced to

enhance the level of integration

among the portfolio of individual

projects and the effectiveness of

stakeholder involvement in the

projects and portfolio as a whole.They were designed specically to

encourage the use of common toolsand case studies, and to improve

understanding of the multidisciplinary

research challenges raised by the

need to adapt UK buildings andinfrastructure to a changing climate.

Additionally, through involvement in

these mechanisms it was intended

that there would be an improved

understanding and dissemination/

take-up of the ensuing researchresults.

Aims of the BKCC Integrating

Framework

a. To maximise the resources ofthe individual projects through

collaboration;

b. To manage the projects as a

coherent portfolio; and

c. To ensure the outputs of the

projects reach the widest possible

stakeholder community.

Key functions of the BKCC

Integrating Framework

a. IF meetings to address common

issues (e.g. datasets and

scenarios, project linkages, socio-

economic issues);

b. BKCC intranet and externalwebsite;

c. Monthly internal e-newsletter;

d. Individual project steering groups;

e. Shared progress reports;

f. Shared case study locations;

g. Shared datasets and datamanagement forum;

h. Identifying and acting on linkages

between projects;

i. Synthesis of ndings (shortreports, technical guides); and

j. Conferences and workshops.

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The Integrating Framework (IF)was established by UKCIP and

EPSRC and was used to encourage

projects to work together and with

their respective and the broader

stakeholder community, and to sharecase study sites. It also included theestablishment of a data management

group to oversee the intelligent

access and sharing of data and a

communications task to facilitate

the sharing of information between

projects and development of thewebsite. The aims and key functions

of the Integrating Framework were:


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Among the advantages of theIntegration Framework (IF) noted by

participants were the following:

Encouraged consistency across

the project through the use of

common scenarios, tools, casestudy sites, data, etc.

Allowed for the sharing of common

data sets and intelligent access to

required data sets (portfolio rather

than project-by-project requests for

data).

Introduced communication tools

(IF meetings, newsletters, project

reports and intranet) that were

effective for sharing information

among the projects researchers

and stakeholders. Facilitated and enhanced

interactions with other projects

and the broader research and

stakeholder communities.

Consideration of this mechanism andits operation by both researchers

and stakeholders led to the following

recommendations as means of

strengthening the IF:

Ensure all research team leadersare aware of requirements of

involvement in the IF and that

provisions for participation are

made within each projects budget.

With the objective ofcommunicating beyond the

immediate BKCC team, it was

suggested that there should be

an external website as well as

intranet.

Consider data requirements whenidentifying stakeholders as they

often have access to unique and

valuable data or information.

Stakeholders, where keen to doso, should be involved in the IF aswell as the Stakeholder Forum.

The importance of making the BKCCresearch relevant to stakeholders

was realised early in the process.

As mentioned earlier, all projects

involved in this programme of

research were required to identify andinvolve in their respective steeringgroup stakeholders who would benet

from the research. It was recognised,

however, that this involvement could

result in stakeholders feeling over-

burdened. To address this concern, aStakeholder Forum was established

to facilitate efcient stakeholder

engagement and minimise

stakeholder fatigue. The objectives

and key functions of this Forum were:

BKCC Stakeholder Forum objectives

a. To better understand the potentialimpacts of climate change on the

built environment, transport and

the utilities;

b. To inform stakeholders on how tosuccessfully adapt to impacts of

climate change; and

c. To inform the research community

on the research challenges in

implementing these adaptation

strategies.

BKCC Stakeholder Forum key

functions

a. Advise on whether BKCC portfolio

is delivering stakeholder-focused,

solutions-driven research;

b. Advise where information from one

project might be of interest more

widely; and

c. Identify dissemination opportunities

for BKCC research and promotesuch dissemination through

members own networks.

Advantages particularly noted byparticipants were primarily related

to its effectiveness as a mechanism

for engaging stakeholders that was

essential for:

Providing data and site access;

Connecting to decision-makers

who potentially would be

implementing the research

ndings;

Facilitating the provision of vital

input into design of the project andmethodology;

Ensuring that outputs were

provided in a useful format; and

Demonstrating that the projects

were addressing real-worldproblems, which is sometimes a

funding criterion.

The Stakeholder Forum also

provided an effective mechanism for

stakeholder involvement which initself encouraged new stakeholders

to get involved. In addition,

the Stakeholder Forum allowed

researchers to see the outputs

from their research being used and

encouraged them to follow thisthrough.

Recommendations suggested forstrengthening the Stakeholder Forum

in terms of better achieving its aims:

Involve stakeholders with a widerange of expertise.

Ensure that stakeholders

involved are in a position to make

decisions and have a practitioner

constituency to which they can

refer.

Stakeholders need to show

ownership of outputs and help

communicate these to the broaderpotential users communities.

Ensure stakeholder and researcher

timetables are linked.

Recognition that stakeholder time,

for the most part, is provided in-

kind.

EPSRC and UKCIP believe that theintroduction of these two integrating

mechanisms has signicantly

contributed to the success of BKCC.

The resulting positive experience

and the lessons learned throughdelivering BKCC are now seen as

providing a model to be applied

for other initiatives. This has been

a learning process that is worth

continuing and rening.

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The requirement to develop high-

resolution climate change scenariostailored to the needs of the BKCC

programme was identied through

discussions with EPSRC, UK Climate

Impacts Programme, academic

partners, stakeholders and project

partners: University of East Anglia,

Newcastle University and the HadleyCentre.

The primary objective of BETWIXT

was to act as a service to the otherprojects in the BKCC programme

and to develop best practice in

the application of climate change

scenarios. This has, however, led to

considerable advances in weather

generator development at both

UEA and Newcastle University.BETWIXT has also addressed issues

of scenario uncertainty (e.g. by

analysing the reliability of regional

model simulations of wind speed) and

the Hadley Centre has provided newinformation on potential changes in

the urban heat island.

The starting point for climate

scenario construction in the BKCC

programme is the four generic IPCCSRES emissions scenarios and

the UKCIP02 scenarios (Hulme et

al., 2002) which are currently themost recent, detailed and reliable

scenarios for the UK. These

simulations, however, had a numberof disadvantages with respect to the

BKCC initiative:

Limited availability of daily time-

series data for all scenario periods,and no sub-daily time-series data;

The spatial resolution of 50 km

x 50 km is coarser than required

for some applications and some

degree of averaging occurs in the

model parameterisation so thatfurther downscaling, to obtain point

rainfall, for example, is required;

Limited information in terms of

meeting the needs of some users

for information on extremes;

Although four emission scenarios

are considered and the scenarios

are based on the average of three

runs of the Hadley Centre climate

model, this still means that the full

range of uncertainty cannot bequantied;

Urbanized portions of the land

surface are neglected, thus

ignoring potential changes in the

urban heat island effect and theimpacts of additional heat sources

in cities.

Aims and objectives

To provide high spatial/temporal

resolution state-of-art climate

scenarios for selected case-studylocations as a common service

to projects funded under the

EPSRC/UKCIP climate impactsprogramme;

To provide continuing supportand advice to the users of these

scenarios.

Buil t EnvironmenT: Weather scenarios for investigation of Impacts and eXTremes

(BETWIXT)

Project leader: Dr Clare Goodess, Climatic Research Unit, University of East Anglia

Project research partners:Climatic Research Unit, University of East Anglia; School of Civil Engineering and

Geosciences, Newcastle University; Hadley Centre; Met Ofce; Environment Agency.

Project stakeholder partners:Other BKCC projects: ASCCUE, AUDACIOUS, BIONICS, CRANIUM, EHF, GENESIS

Project website:www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/projects/betwixt

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BETWIXT outputs

BETWIXT successfully developed

high-resolution climate-change

scenarios for key UK locations.

These scenarios are based on,

and consistent with, the UKCIP02scenarios, but have been developed

for shorter time periods and point

locations, to meet the particular

needs of the built environment,

including information about changesin weather extremes.

Two types of model were developed

to construct these scenarios:

RainClimsoftware package:

generates rainfall time series for the

present day and future time periodsup to 2100 for 18 sites in the UK, with

time resolutions of 5 minutes and 1

hour. RainClim was made available

for download by BKCC users.The Climatic Research Unit (CRU)weather generator:constructs self-

consistent daily time series for the

present day and future time periods

for eight variables (maximum and

minimum temperature, precipitation,

sunshine, vapour pressure, relativehumidity, wind speed and potential

evapotranspiration) and at ten BKCC

case-study locations.

The basis of RainClim and the

CRU weather generator have been

further developed in an EnvironmentAgency (EA) funded development of

a software tool: EARWIG, EA Rainfall

and Weather Impacts Generator.

The choice of variables, extreme

events, temporal and spatial scalesand geographical locations used in

BETWIXT was strongly guided by the

user community, through an iterative

and two-way process. BETWIXT has

had a major impact in feeding data,together with advice and guidance on

usage into the other BKCC projects.

Examples include: High time resolution extreme

rainfall for the AUDACIOUS project

for urban drainage models;

Joint precipitation and temperature

series for the CRANIUM project

case-study on snow melt and

hydropower in Scotland;

Future climate rainfall series forthe BIONICS project, studying

wetting and drying impacts on

embankments;

Daily weather generator outputfor the use in ASCCUES spatial

mapping and risk assessmentwork for Greater Manchester;

Hourly and daily weather generatoroutput to allow projections of future

energy demand patterns in the

GENESIS project;

Hourly and daily weather

generator output for Coltishall

and Abbotsinch for use in theEngineering Historic Futures

case-studies at Blickling Hall and

Brodick Castle.

Advances in RainClim

The RainClim software package

was developed by NewcastleUniversity building on previous

work on the Neyman-Scott

Rectangular Pulses (NSRP) point-

process rainfall model applied in

hydrological modelling. RainClimconsolidates a number of key

advances in the area of rainfall

modelling including:

Fitting models to current and

projected future rainfall statistics

using an approach of applyingfactors derived from regional

climate model (RCM) output;

Fitting using third-order moments

to obtain better representation of

extremes (Kilsby et al., 2004);

Disaggregation of 1-hour seriesto 5-minute using a second

stochastic process model, crucial

for urban drainage modelling.

A major advance was made in thelinkage of the NSRP rainfall model

with the CRU weather generator:

previous work in this area has

used simpler rainfall models (e.g.

Markov chain) which tend to have

inferior performance and morelimited ability for modication for

future climates, particularly at

the sub-daily level. Consistent

linkage of the two models provides

consistent weather variable series

and facilitates more compleximpacts modelling such as snow

melt estimation. An hourly version

of the weather generator, linked to

RainClim, has also been produced.

Advances in the CRU weather

generator

The CRU daily weather generator

was initially developed by Jonesand Salmon (1995) and has been

extensively modied and further

developed in the BETWIXT project.

Precipitation is the fundamental,primary variable in the weather

generator, from which all theother variables are derived using

regression relationships or

subsequent direct calculation. A

rst-order Markov chain model

(Richardson, 1981) is used. A

major advance in BETWIXT is theuse of a continuous distribution for

precipitation, making this an innite

state model which is considered

superior to the more usual two-

state model. Once precipitation has

been generated, the secondaryvariables (minimum and maximum

temperature, vapour pressure,

wind speed and sunshine duration)

are generated. Finally, relative

humidity and reference potentialevapotranspiration (PET) are

calculated from the generated

variables.

EARWIG

EARWIG (Kilsby et al., 2007)

generates consistent daily series ofrainfall and other weather variables

for 5km grid squares and rivercatchments across the UK for the

same climate scenarios as the

BETWIXT models. EARWIG was

developed for strategic projects

under the key Environment

Agency science theme of ClimateChange, including implementation

of the Water Framework Directive,

impact assessments for hydrology,

pollution, water resources and

ooding. EARWIG has been taken

up enthusiastically by consultants,academics and EA projects in the

rst few months of its availability. A

version incorporating further model

outputs (from the EU PRUDENCE

project outputs) is now available,and is the rst stage of planned

developments towards a fully

probabilistic system. This will be

carried out in the context of the

UKCIP2008 which will allow for the

generation of on-demand, specicweather series for given locations,

emissions scenarios and quantiles

of probability using probabilistic

modelled outputs.

Screenshot of the RainClim userinterface.

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Figure 5 Mean annual precipitation and percentage of wet hours projected for

January and July for Paisley near Glasgow for the 2080s under the medium-

high emissions scenario. Observed values (blue crosses) are the observed

mean. The simulated values (red for the 1961-1990 control period and black for

the scenario periods) are the mean of 50 30-year weather generator runs (red/

black dots). The red/black lines and bars show the variability of the 50 series(plotted as plus/minus two standard deviations around the mean).

0

1

2

3

4

mm

Paisley (2080s) Medium High Emissions Scenario

0

0.1

0.2

0.3

%

Precip percent wet hours January

0

1

2

3

4

mm

Precipitation July

Precipitation January

0

0.1

0.2

0.3

%

Precip percent wet hours July

00 02 04 06 08 10 12 14 16 18 20 22

00 hours

00 02 04 06 08 10 12 14 16 18 20 22

00 hours

00 02 04 06 08 10 12 14 16 18 20 22

00 hours

00 02 04 06 08 10 12 14 16 18 20 22

00 hours

In addition to this scenario

construction work, the Hadley Centre

for Climate Change Research has,for the rst time, implemented a

parameterisation of urban land

surfaces and anthropogenic

heat sources in the land-surface

scheme of the Hadley Centre

Atmospheric General CirculationModel HadAM3. Seven simulations

were performed to evaluate the

sensitivity to current/doubled carbon

dioxide concentrations, no/current

urban areas and current/tripledanthropogenic heat sources.

In these simulations, landscape

effects cause urban areas simulated

to be warmer and less humid than

surrounding non-urban areas as a

result of landscape effects, both atpresent-day and doubled carbon

dioxide levels. Estimated present-day anthropogenic heat sources

slightly further increase the strength

of the urban heat island and dry

island. Tripling of the heat sourcecauses additional urban warming

and drying, with large changes in

the variance and skew of the heat

island distribution. This suggests that

the present-day heat island is not agood indication of a future heat island

under modied forcings, so heat

islands cannot be properly accounted

for by simply adding present-day

heat island patterns to gridbox-meanprojections of climate warming.

Case study

For the AUDACIOUS project, high

time resolution extreme rainfall was

needed for urban drainage models.Figure 5 shows mean annual

precipitation and percentage of wet

hours projected for January and

July for Paisley near Glasgow for

the 2080s under the medium-high

emissions scenario, while Figure

6 shows wet hour persistence andfrequency of wet hour amounts.

Impact of research

Major research impacts of BETWIXT

outputs are evident both within the

BKCC portfolio and more widely inthe UK and European climate impacts

modelling community. Exciting new

developments in ensemble climate

modelling at the Hadley Centre and

in Europe (ENSEMBLES project)

have moved towards a Bayesian

framework where probability densityfunctions (pdfs) are generated rather

than explicit time series of weather

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11

Figure 6 Wet hour persistence and frequency of wet hour amounts for

January and July for Paisley near Glasgow for the 2080s under the medium-

high emissions scenario.

60

40

20

0

frequency

Paisley (2080s) Medium high

Wet hour persistence

January

Wet hour persistence

July

Frequency of wet hour amounts

January

Frequency of wet hour amounts

July

Consecutive hours of preciptation

30

20

10

0

frequency

120

80

40

0

frequency

80

60

40

20

0

frequ

ency

Class (preciptation mm)

Class (preciptation mm)

0.1-0.5 0.5-1.0 1-2 2-5 5-10 10-25 25-50 50-100

0.1-0.5 0.5-1.0 1-2 2-5 5-10 10-25 25-50 50-100

1 6 11 16 21 26 31 36 41 46

Consecutive hours of preciptation

1 6 11 16 21 26 31 36 41 46

observed values

simulated values for the control period

simulated values for the 2080s

variables for all possible scenarios.

The successful demonstration of

the stochastic weather generatorapproach in BETWIXT has led

to the realisation that a major

role in downscaling and scenariodevelopment can be played by

models such as RainClim and the

CRU weather generator in providing

time series for specic scenarios

or quantiles of pdfs derived from

ensemble climate projections.Subsequently, the latter model has

been used to construct probabilistic

scenarios of extremes as part of the

CRANIUM project.

Time-series output and summaryoutput from the CRU daily and hourly

weather generators can be freely

downloaded from the BETWIXT

project website, together with brieng

notes describing the models andtheir performance. Outside the

BKCC programme outputs have,

for example, been used by Atkins

consultants to examine the risks ofclimate change to Londons transport

systems for the London Climate

Change Partnership, particularly in

relation to ooding and hot weather

infrastructure problems. They have

also been used by the London Schoolof Hygiene and Tropical Medicine to

study health impacts in London and

the South East, and by the Institute

of Water and Environment, CraneldUniversity to explore uncertainties in

simulating groundwater recharge inEast Anglia.

The urban heat island simulations

are described in two brieng notes.

These results suggest that state-of-the-art climate change projections,

such as those produced using the

BETWIXT weather generators,

may contain systematic biases inestimates of temperature and relative

humidity in urban areas, as a result of

urban effects being neglected. Future

climate model simulations intended

for use in assessments of potential

climate change impacts in the builtenvironment should include changes

in urban area and anthropogenic

heat sources. The BETWIXT work

has helped to set the stage so thatfuture research efforts will be able to

address this important issue.

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Stakeholder view:

Roger Street, UKCIP

Increased interest in addressing the

implications of a changing climate

both in terms of its scope and nature

of that interest has increased thedemand for information that can

support decision-making. Thisincreased demand is particularly

reected in the needs of the built

environment community as becameapparent within BKCC. BKCC

researchers and stakeholders

expressed the need for greater

temporal and spatial detailed

climate scenarios, as well as higher

resolution simulations that wouldallow them to explore changes in the

urban heat island.

Within BKCC, BETWIXT did not

have direct involvement with the

stakeholder community, however,

they did and are expected to benetfrom BETWIXT results both directly

and as a result of benets realised bythe other BKCC projects. The latter

benet may be more visible in that

other projects needs for sub-daily andhigher resolution information were

delivered through BETWIXT allowing

those other projects to achieve their

results. The benets directly to the

stakeholders will result from access to

the BETWIXT outputs which is seenby many stakeholders as presenting

the climate change information at

scales that are meaningful to their

decisions, thereby helping them

bridge the gap between theory andpractice. The focus on extremeevents is seen as particularly helpful,

particularly considering that many

stakeholders believe that the primary

vulnerabilities in the built environment

during the next 10-25 years will berealised through extreme events.

Considering the importance and

vulnerability of urban environmentsto climate extremes and change,

BETWIXTs contribution to

demonstrating the importance of

landscape effects and local heatsources for simulated climatechange in urban areas sets the

stage for further work in this area.

The importance of having available

information on the urban heat island

has been highlighted by stakeholders

in a number of the major citiesthroughout the UK following the

observed impacts during recent

summers. The fact that EPSRC

has funded further research on the

urban heat island further highlights

the importance of this work and the

contribution of BETWIXT.

The development of RainClim and

CRU daily and hourly weather

generators ensured the availability of

high spatial and temporal resolutiontemperature and rainfall scenarios in

support of the other BKCC projects.

With these high resolution scenarios,

many of these other BKCC projects

were able to undertake analyses and

provide results to stakeholders thatwere deemed to be more meaningful.

This work will continue to benet

stakeholders and not just those withconcerns for the built environment.

The lessons learned throughdevelopment of these new tools will

be used in the development of the

weather generating tool that will be

available through the UKCIP08 users

interface.

As a supportive project more orless behind the scenes within the

BKCC suite of projects, the benets

accrued through BETWIXT may not

be as apparent to all stakeholders,

but as one can see through theresults reported, the benets wereomnipresent. There is at least one

further benet from BETWIXT that

will hopefully be a further legacy

effecting the future development

of climate scenarios. BETWIXTdemonstrated the value of ongoing

dialogue between developers and

users of climate scenario information.

It showed how such dialogue can

help bridge the gaps between the

two communities towards ensuringscientically appropriate tailoring of

climate change information to supportpractical applications.

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References

Hulme,M., Jenkins,G.J., Lu,X.,

Turnpenny,J.R., Mitchell,T.D., Jones,R.

G., Lowe,J., Murphy,J.M.,Hassell,D.,Boorman,P., McDonald,R. and Hill,S.

(2002). Climate Change Scenarios for

the United Kingdom: The UKCIP02Scientic Report. Tyndall Centre for

Climate Change Research, School of

Environmental Sciences, University ofEast Anglia, Norwich, UK. 120pp

Jones, P.D. and Salmon, M. (1995)

Development and Integration of a

Stochastic Weather Generator into

a Crop Growth Model for EuropeanAgriculture, MARS Project. Final

Report to Institute of Remote Sensing

Applications, Agricultural Information

Systems (ISPRA). Contract No. 5631-

93-12, ED ISP GB.Kilsby, C.G., Jones, P.D., Harpham, C.,

Burton, A., Ford, A.C., Fowler, H.J.,

Smith, A., Wilby, R.L (2007). A daily

weather generator for use in climate

change studies. Environmental

Modelling and Software, in press.

Kilsby C.G., Moaven-Hashemi, A.,

OConnell, P.E. (2004). Simulation of

rainfall extremes: tting to observed

annual maxima. First International

Conference on Flood Risk. Institute

of Mathematics and its Applications,

University of Bath, UK, 7-8 September,2004.

Richardson, C.W. (1981). Stochastic

simulation of daily precipitation,

temperature, and solar radiation.Water Resources Research17, 182-

190.

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14

Building Economic and Social information for Examining the Effects of Climate

cHange (BESEECH).

Project leader:Professor Paul Ekins, Policy Studies Institute

Project research partners:Policy Studies Institute

Project stakeholder partners:Other BKCC projects: ASCCUE, AUDACIOUS, EHF and GENESIS

Project website:www.psi.org.uk/reserach/project.asp?_id=103

In order to assess the impacts

of climate change, both climate

scenarios, describing conditions or

changes in climatic parameters, andnon-climatic scenarios, providing

the wider socio-economic context in

which the climatic changes would be

taking place are required.

During the early stages of the

BKCC programme, a need wasidentied for consistent socio-

economic information, additional to

that provided in the UKCIP Socio-

Economic Scenarios (UKCIP, 2001),

which could be used by the individualBKCC projects. In particular, there

was a need for the scenarios to

provide insights regarding the

capacity of systems in the building

sector to adapt to climate change

i.e. their adaptive capacity. Fourprojects were identied where

this was particularly relevant: the

urban environment (ASCCUE),

urban drainage (AUDACIOUS),

built heritage (Engineering Historic

Futures) and electricity supply andgeneration (GENESIS).

It was recognised that there was

a need both for further qualitative

development of the scenario

storylines, and for the provisionof more detailed quantitative

projections. Furthermore, there wasa need to develop project-specic

scenarios, focussing on the attributes

of case-study areas of individual

projects, in addition to genericscenario development that would be

relevant to all BKCC projects.

Aims and objectives

The overall aims of the BESEECH

project were to further theunderstanding of adaptive

capacity, its determinants and its

consequences; to provide a service

to the BKCC portfolio of projects

by supplying consistent, unifying

assumptions and scenarios; and toassist in the integration and synthesis

of the socio-economic aspects of the

portfolio.

These aims are reected in the three

specic objectives that were set forthe project, which are:

to develop novel means of

assessing the capacity and

willingness of individuals and

organisations in the building sector

to adapt to climate change;

to expand and further interpret,both quantitatively and

qualitatively, the four socio-

economic scenarios developed

under the UK Climate ImpactsProgramme (UKCIP);

to synthesise the socio-economic

elements of the BKCC programme.

Background

The UKCIP socio-economic scenariosfor the UK (UKCIP, 2001) provided

the starting point for the BESEECH

project. In the development of these

scenarios, the two dimensions of

governance and valueswere takenas fundamental and independent

determinants of future change; withchanges in all other variables being

seen primarily as a function of the

particular relationship between the

dominant socio-political values andthe organisational interests and

congurations. This gave rise to four

scenarios: World Markets, Global

Sustainability, Local Stewardship and

National Enterprise (Figure 7).

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15

None of these scenarios should be

viewed as predictions or forecasts

of future outcomes. Rather, eachscenario should be viewed as a

coherent, internally consistent, and

plausible description of a possible

future state of the world (Carter and

La Rovere, 2001:147), which can

be used as a tool to illuminate thechoices of the present in the light

of possible futures (Godet and

Roubelat, 1996:164). As such, they

are useful tools for assessing future

Characteristics of UKCIP

socio-economic scenarios

The National Enterprisescenario

sees people aspiring to personal

independence and material wealth

within a nationally-based culturalidentity. Liberalised markets

together with a commitment to buildcapabilities and resources to secure

a high degree of national self-reliance

and security are believed to best

deliver these goals. Political andcultural institutions are strengthened

to buttress national autonomy.

In the Local Stewardshipscenario,

people aspire to sustainable levels

of welfare in federal and networkedcommunities. Markets are subject

to social regulation to ensure more

equally distributed opportunities and

a high quality local environment.Active public policy aims to promote

economic activities that are small-scale and regional in scope, and acts

to constrain large-scale markets and

technologies. Local communities are

strengthened to ensure participative

and transparent governance.

In the World Marketsscenario, people

aspire to personal independence,

material wealth and mobility to the

exclusion of wider social goals.

Integrated global markets are seen

as the best way to deliver this.Internationally coordinated policy sets

framework conditions for the efcient

functioning of markets. Wherever

possible, the provision of goods

and services is privatised, under the

principle of minimal government.Rights of individuals to personal

freedoms are enshrined in law.

Under the Global Sustainability

scenario, people aspire to high

levels of welfare within communitieswith shared values, more equally

distributed opportunities and a sound

environment. These objectives are

thought to be best achieved through

active public policy and international

cooperation within the EU and at theglobal level. Social objectives are met

through public provision, increasingly

at an international level. Markets are

regulated to encourage competition

amongst national players. Personal

and social behaviour is shaped bycommonly-held beliefs and customs.

Figure 7 UKCIP Socio-Economic Scenarios

developments in complex systems

that are characterised by high

scientic uncertainty and insufcientunderstanding, making them

inherently unpredictable. In particular,

they provide a useful tool for

scrutinising underlying assumptions

and for identifying potential future

threats and opportunities, andthey facilitate the development of

strategies that are robust under a

variety of circumstances.

interdependence

autonomy

consumerism values community

world

markets

national

enterprise

global

sustainability

local

stewardship

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16

interdependence (high grid)

autonomy (low grid)

consumerism

(low group)

values community

(high group)

world

markets

(fatalists)

national

enterprise

(individualists)

global

sustainability

(hierarchists)

local

stewardship

(egalitarians)

high grid

low grid

low group

(strength of group boundary,

difficulty of entry)

high group

fatalism

individualism

hierarchy

autonomy

egalitarianism

Figure 9 Combined socio-economic scenarios and cultural types

Figure 8 Cultural types

Scenario development

The qualitative and quantitative

development of the scenarios is

described in detail in Dahlstrm

and Salmons (2005). The following

provides a brief synopsis.

Qualitative development

In developing a qualitative frameworkfor the scenarios, two theoretical

concepts were combined: adaptivecapacityand grid-group cultural

theory.

Adaptive capacity is the ability of a

system to adapt to the effects and

impacts of climate change, and takeadvantage of new opportunities

associated with such change.

Together with exposure, adaptive

capacity is a key determinant of

the vulnerability of a system. The

characteristics of societies thatinuence their ability to adapt are

called the determinants of adaptive

capacityand are generally thought

to involve the economic, social,

demographic, technological andinstitutional conditions which in

various ways facilitate or hinder

the implementation of adaptive

measures.

Following a literature review on

the factors that inuence adaptivecapacities and workshops with

individual BKCC projects to assesstheir socio-economic needs, six

broad categories of adaptive capacity

determinants were identied as

an appropriate framework aroundwhich to structure and elaborate the

scenarios. These were: governance,

technology, human capital, equity,

critical institutions and economic

resources and structure.

Grid-group cultural theory is

a framework that individualsinvolvement in social life can be

captured by two dimensions of

sociality: the degree of social

regulation or prescription (grid) and

the degree of social integration

(group). Increasing the griddimension means increasing limits

on individuals options or moving

from a more unstructured to a

more structured state. The group

dimension describes the degree

of collectiveness or individualismand the difculty of entry into a

certain group: increasing the group

dimension means increasing the

strength of the group boundaries.

Using these two dimensions, vedistinct ways of life/cultural types can

be dened: hierarchists, individualists,egalitarians, fatalists and autonomists

(Figure 8).

Combining the cultural types with the

socio-economic scenarios helpedby not only providing a general

elaboration of the scenarios, but

the insights from cultural theory

more specically aided in assessing

the dominant approaches to

environmental risk management inthe different scenarios; in speculating

on the different types of problems

and possible surprises to which the

different scenarios make themselves

vulnerable; in ensuring that a balance

between negative and positiveattributes is considered in all the

scenarios; as well as helping to draw

out the social characteristics of the

scenarios (Figure 9).

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17

Quantitative development

There was broad agreement within

the BKCC portfolio that a more

rigorous approach to the estimation

of quantitative indicators for the

scenarios would be benecial,with greater clarity regarding the

underlying assumptions. This was

reected in the approach thatwas used in BESEECH for the

construction of various quantitative

projections. In order to ensurethe internal consistency of the

projections, they were generated

using an integrated suite of

spreadsheet modules, driven by a

small number of scenario-specic

parameters which could be directlyrelated to the respective storylines.

Projections were produced for each

of the four scenarios out to 2061

for three core indicators:

Population: broken down byregion (NUTS1) / sex / age-

band;

Gross Value Added (GVA):

broken down by region (NUTS1)

/ sector;

Households: broken down by

region (NUTS1) and by household

type.

In addition to the projections

for these three core indicators,

it was felt that the inclusion ofsome other quantitative indicators

relating to the determinants of

adaptive capacity would help

clarify the storylines. However,

these indicators were not modelledwith the same level of rigour.

Rather they were guesstimated

for the different scenarios using

available time series data for the

UK, international comparisons and

future projections where thesewere available. Consequently they

should be treated as illustrative,serving merely to enrich the

narrative storylines.

BESEECH scenarios

Brief synopses of the scenarios

along the six determinants of

adaptive capacity are given below.

Comprehensive storylines can be

found in Dahlstrm and Salmons(2005).

National enterprise

Governance

Nature is seen as benign. Whilethere may be short-term problems,

the dominant view is that the global

equilibrium will be restored in the

long-term. Commitment to climate

change and adaptation optionsis lukewarm and management

adopts a laissez-faire attitude

to environmental issues. The

credibility of decision-makers is

medium-low. This individualistic

society is vulnerable to climatechange risks through a general

lack of cooperation.

Technology

The rate of innovation is rather lowdue to low R&D investment and

limited international competition,

resulting in a reliance on traditional

technology for environmental

protection.

Human capital

The quality of state education

declines, and private education

increases for those who canafford it. There is little concern for

environmental or social justice

issues, including climate change

causes and effects. However,

there is some general knowledge

and awareness of climate changeissues and adaptation options.

Equity

Income and other inequalities

grow somewhat, as does social

exclusion. There is little concern

about social equity, and state

provision of education andhealthcare declines. Access to

nancial, information, health and

other resources becomes uneven.

Critical institutions

Planning is seen as an important

state activity, carried out by

bureaucrats, to redress market

failures and support or suppress

development. There is some reformin the planning system, although

the structure of development plans

and development controls remains.

While insurance is widely available,

high premiums in vulnerable areas

mean that uptake becomes more

scattered and uneven.

Economic resources and structure

Growth is a political priority in this

scenario, but falls below the long-run UK average due to protectionist

policies at the national and regional

levels. In general, there is little

state intervention in the economy,

except in relation to key industrieswhich are supported against

foreign competition. There are

considerable regional variations

in economic development, with

London and SE experiencing thehighest growth rates.

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18

Local stewardship

Governance

Ecosystems are seen to be very

fragile and nature must be treatedwith care as small events can trigger

collapse. Commitment to climate

change and adaptation policies is

high, with decision-makers focusing

on the risks of technology and

risks to the environment. There is arange of planned and autonomous

adaptations. However, there is

relatively little new research, and

no major structural responses. The

credibility of decision-makers ismedium-high, with trust increasing at

more local levels of government. As

this society is characterised by little

acceptance of authority, it becomes

vulnerable to deadlock over important

issues.

Technology

Rates of investment and innovation

in manufacturing are generally

low, although there is a concertedchannelling of efforts towards

environmental technologies, usable

at small scales, with a stress on

eco-efciency, quality and durability

in consumer goods. There is a

decline in the quality of large-scaleengineering works, and there are

few technology spill-over effects or

benets from shared development

expenditure.Human capital

The education and healthcare

systems are largely publicly funded

and there is an emphasis on

environmental and social justiceissues. Knowledge about the causes

and impacts of climate change

are well-known, and there is a

good general understanding of the

behavioural adaptation options.

Prevailing attitudes to climate changerisks are that they require common

efforts and altruism in order to beprevented or modied.

Equity

Income and other disparities decline,

as does social exclusion, and there

is a very strong emphasis on equity,

social inclusion, and participatory

democracy. Access to insurance andforms of risk-sharing is fairly even.


The planning system is scaled

down at the national level, with

fewer resources (or public support)

available for large-scale projects or

enforcement. Central government

issues policy guidance whichis interpreted at the regional

level, although nationally there is

consensus on key issues. The role

of insurance narrows as a range of

alternative risk-sharing arrangementsare developed. There are fairly high

levels of welfare provision, and

signicantly higher levels of informal

social security.


Economic growth is not an

absolute political priority, and it

is slow relative to the long-term

average. International trade plays

a relatively less important role ineconomic growth, which more evenly

spread across the regions than

today. Smaller-scale production of

goods and services is encouraged,

with SMEs in the manufacturingsector, cooperatives, and locally-

based nancial and other services

prospering.

World markets

Governance

Nature is seen as acting randomly;

there is no point in specic riskprevention strategies. There is

minimal government intervention,

and the state relies on autonomous

adaptations, of which there are

plenty, particularly in terms of market-

driven innovation. The credibilityof decision-makers is low, although

the electorate is largely politically

inactive. There is unwillingness

to plan ahead, making society

vulnerable to different types of climatechange risks.

Technology

Although public R&D investment

is proportionately low, the rate ofinnovation is high and driven by

market priorities. Innovation is

promoted by high investments in

Research Training and Development,

and private-public partnerships. There

is rapid innovation in technologies forthe built environment.

Human capital

The provision and quality of state-

funded education declines, andaccess to a good education becomes

very uneven as those who can afford

private education choose that route.

The education system emphasises

skills needed in a highly market-

driven economy. There is verylittle appreciation of climate change

causes and impacts, and with regard

to climate change risks, outcomes

are seen to be largely a function of

chance.

Equity

Income and other inequalities

increase substantially. Levels of

social exclusion are high, but concernabout issues of social equity or

inclusion remains at low levels.

Wealthy sections of the population

can afford to protect themselves, butincreasingly, the less well off sections

bear the losses of climate changeimpacts.

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The scope of planning in this scenario

is narrowed towards supporting

economic development and urban

design, and the system is not used tocounteract wider social and economic

trends. State activity is minimised,with several functions privatised

and placed in the hands of technical

experts, and public participation isgreatly reduced. Insurance is widely

available, except in very vulnerable

areas, for those who can afford to.

The welfare system is increasingly

privatised and tied to labour-market

contributions.


Economic growth is a political priority

and GDP growth is rapid by historical

standards. Globalisation proceedsrapidly as national and international

markets are liberalised. The

dismantling of trade barriers and the

retreat of the state leaves a greater

role for the private sector. Structuralchange in the economy is rapid,

with the service sector dominating

economic activity.

Global responsibility

Governance

Nature is seen to be robust within

certain limits, which must not beexceeded. While commitment to

climate change and adaptation

policies is reasonably high,

governments are more concerned

with the risks of failed diplomacy and

international relations. The credibilityof decision makers is high, as this

type of society values experts and

hierarchies highly. However, this

also makes this society vulnerable

to misplaced trust in authority andscience.

Technology

Innovation focuses on radical

improvements in eco-efciencyacross the board, and there is also

a rapid rate of innovation in other

environmental technologies, as well

as in traditional sectors. Public, as

well as private, R&D spending is high.

Human capital

There is equal access to high quality

public education, which includes

teaching on social and environmental

values. Understanding of climatechange causes and effects are

reasonably high, while the general

awareness of adaptation options is

medium-high.

EquityThere is a broad consensus on the

need for maintaining and enhancing

social equity, and as a result income

and other inequalities, and socialexclusion, decrease somewhat.

Governments prioritise access to

insurance, and provide assistance

to those who are without such

protection.


The planning system is strengthened

and its scope expanded, and there

is a lot of respect for planners whoare seen to facilitate the collaborationneeded to transform urban spaces.

Development plans remain essentially

the same as now, but there is an

increase in development controls

and more detailed policy guidance inkey areas related to climate change.

Uptake of insurance is fairly even,

although there are some limitations

and restrictions in place. State

provision of welfare is substantial.


Economic growth continues at aroundlong-term average rates, with the

economy becoming increasingly

export-oriented. Growth is achieved

by balancing commercial with social

and environmental objectives,

reecting a concern about long-term

development issues.

Quantitative projections

The size and structure of the

population differs between thefour scenarios, reecting different

underlying assumptions aboutinward migration and mortality rates.

Population growth is fastest in the

World Markets scenario, reaching

70 million by the end of the 2050s.

In contrast, the population under

the Local Stewardship scenarioremains at around 60 million. In all

four scenarios there is a signicant

change in the age-structure of

the population, with an increasing

proportion of older people. This is

particularly marked in the GlobalResponsibility scenario, where

around 14% of the population are

over 80 years old by the end of the

2050s.

There is even greater variationbetween the scenarios in terms of

the number of households and their

composition, reecting differences in

the underlying assumptions for the

trajectories for average household

size. In the World Markets scenario,the number of households grows

to almost 36 million by the end ofthe 2050s, with over 40% of these

being single-person households. In

contrast, the number of householdsunder the Local Stewardship scenario

declines (from todays level) to less

than 23 million, reecting a reduction

in the proportion of single-person

households to around 15% and a

corresponding increase in multi-person households.

Project-specic scenarios

The generic scenarios provided the

base for the generation of project-specic scenarios that focused on

the specic socio-economic issues

that had been identied for each

of the four stakeholder BKCC

projects. For example, in thespecic scenarios produced for the

ASCCUE project (Salmons and Venn,

2006) the implications for the urban

environment and for the use of urban

green space are expanded upon.

The accompanying quantitativeprojections are also tailored to the

needs of the individual projects, with

detailed breakdowns for economicactivity, population and households

being provided for their respective

case-study regions.

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Project achievements

A literature review demonstrated

that a criticism of socio-economic

scenarios used in climate change

and adaptation research is that they

do not provide an adequate insightinto present vulnerability, and the

dynamic processes of vulnerability

and adaptation (Downing, 2003).

The BESEECH scenarios addressed

this problem by considering factorsthat inuence adaptive capacity

and using these as an organising

framework for the development of

the scenario storylines. In particular,

six determinants of adaptive capacity

in the built environment weredetermined on the basis of a review

of the relevant literature and the

requirements of the stakeholder

BKCC projects.

A major scientic outcome of theproject has been the extension of thequantitative data set from the UKCIP

(2001) data. Quantitative indicators

in the key areas of economic,

demographic and household

characteristics have been producedfor each scenario up to the 2050s,

with detailed breakdowns along UK

regional, sectoral and demographic

dimensions.

Another outcome has been the

production of project-specic

scenarios for the stakeholderBKCC projects, in which the generic

scenarios have been tailored to meet

the specic needs of the individual

projects and their respective casestudy areas.

The development of qualitative

data, combined with determinants

of adaptive capacity is a major

project outcome. Now, through the

development of storylines illustratedexamples of how economic, social

and environmental issues are

addressed differently in each of thefour scenarios. This information

complements the qualitative data

to give a holistic view of each of thescenarios and how they respond

individually to the problems posed by

climate change.

other couple one person

million

scenario

40

30

20

10

0

2001 WM NE GR LS

Figure 10 Population by age band: 2061 under the different scenarios (WM:

World Markets; NE: National Enterprise; GR: Global Responsibility; LS: LocalStewardship)

Figure 11 Households by type: 2061 under the different scenarios (WM:

World Markets; NE: National Enterprise; GR: Global Responsibility; LS: Local

Stewardship)

aged 80+ aged 65 - 79 aged 15 - 64 aged 0 - 14

millio

n

scenario

80

60

40

20

0

2001 WM NE GR LS

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References

Carter, T. and La Rovere, E.

(2001). Developing and Applying

Scenarios. Climate Change

2001 - Impacts, Adaptation

and Vulnerability. Contributionof Working Group II to the

Third Assessment Report of

the Intergovernmental Panel

on Climate Change. IPCC.

Cambridge, Cambridge UniversityPress: 145-190.

Dahlstrm, K. and Salmons, R.

(2005). Building Economic and

Social Information for Examining

the Effects of Climate cHange.

Generic socio-economic scenarios,nal report. Policy Studies

Institute.

Downing, T. (2003). Lessons from

early warning and food securityfor understanding adaptationto climate change: toward a

vulnerability/adaptation science?

In Smith, S., Klein, R. and Huq, S

(Eds). Climate Change, Adaptive

Capacity and Development.

Imperial College Press. pp 71-100.

DTI (2002). Foresight Futures 2020:

Revised Scenarios and Guidance.

London, DTI.

Godet, M. and Roubelat, F. (1996).

Creating the Future: The Use and

Misuse of Scenarios. Long RangePlanning29 (2): 164-171.

Salmons, R. and Venn, A. (2006).

Building Economic and Social

Information for Examining the

Effects of Climate cHange. Projectspecic socio-economic scenarios

ASCCUE, nal report. Policy

Studies Institute.

UKCIP (2001). Socio-economic

scenarios for climate changeimpact assessment: a guide

to their use in the UK Climate

Impacts Programme. Oxford,UKCIP.

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Climate change Risk Assessment: New Impact and Uncertainty Methods (CRANIUM)

Project leader: Professor Jim Hall, School of Civil Engineering and Geosciences, Newcastle University

Project research partners: School of Civil Engineering and Geosciences, Newcastle University; Climatic Research Unit,

University of East Anglia; Leeds University Business School; School of Geographical Sciences, University of Bristol

Project stakeholder partners:Arup; Halcrow; Halliburton KBR; Environment Agency; Met Ofce, Hadley Centre;Network Rail; Scottish and Southern Energy

Project website:www.ncl.ac.uk/cranium; www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/projects/cranium

Background

The assessment and managementof risk are essential issues for all

decision-makers. By linking the

characteristics of major environmental

hazards, such as extreme weather

events, to the sensitivity and

vulnerability of a system, we canobtain a more balanced view of the

potential consequences of decisions.

This in turn can assist in the choice of

more effective adaptation responses.

The challenge therefore is to applyand extend current research on risk

management to incorporate the

effects of climate change, comparing

climate and non-climate related risks.

Uncertainty is inherently relatedto risk. Complete prediction of

environmental hazards for decision-

making is never possible, due to

incomplete datasets usually over tooshort a time period, and uncertainty

about the future. Therefore knowingwhat we do not know, the process

of explicitly identifying sources of

uncertainty within the decision-

making process, is critical for making

effective decisions based on risk.

Anticipating climate change inevitably

involves uncertainty. UKCIP does not

provide forecasts or predictions of

climate change, but rather scenarios

which give a range of values based

upon particular assumptions offuture greenhouse gas emission

levels. Exact predictions of the

future are impossible for a host of

reasons relating to societal and

technological change. In addition,

the climatic response to changingemission levels is also uncertain

because climate models, although

continually improving, are based

upon an incomplete knowledge of

atmospheric, terrestrial and oceandynamics.

Because risk assessment canprovide us with the means to handle

uncertainty in climate change

decision-making, UKCIP and the

Environment Agency have developed

guidelines on this subject (Connell

and Willows (2003). Within this

framework however, there exists afull research agenda to explore and

evaluate different methodologies with

the objective of providing practical

advice to stakeholders. Case studies

are particularly useful in this respect,because criteria and approaches

to risk assessment can vary widely

amongst different organisations.

A particularly pertinent example

for the built environment is the

Documents

Building Knowledge for a Changing Climate: collaborative research to understand and adapt to the impacts of climate change on infrastructure, the built environment and utilities