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Skara Brae in the Heart of Neolithic Orkney World Heritage Site.

Historic Environment Scotland (HES) are tackling climate change and climate adaptation in several ways, from their internal operations to providing external support and guidance. This case study highlights some of the actions they are taking to protect the historic environment from the impacts of climate change, both now and into the future.

Building an evidence base to inform climate ready decision making for Scotland’s historic environment.

HES are responsible for the care and maintenance of 336 historic properties throughout Scotland. Many of these properties are situated in landscapes that are vulnerable to climate related natural hazards. Like much of Scotland’s historic environment, the properties often show an inherent resilience to Scotland’s wet climate, but climate change is creating new challenges that they were never designed to cope with.

In order to gain a more thorough understanding of natural hazard risk across the diverse and complex estate, HES worked in close partnership with the British Geological Survey and the Scottish Environment Protection Agency, to combine various natural hazard datasets into a Geographic Information System (GIS) database. This was then combined with spatial data from HES properties to assess the likelihood of various natural hazards occurring at those properties, see the case study here. A baseline assessment was produced that will allow a more informed approach to managing climate related risks to be taken.

The initial assessment allowed identifies 28 properties that are considered to be at very high risk from one or more of the natural hazards assessed. The next steps are to ground truth the initial desk based assessment update them with any in depth, site specific risks, before considering the landscapes beyond the boundaries of properties, the climate impacts on staff and visitor safety, site operations and internal collections, and to consider how UKCP18 data is incorporated.

‘Evaluating the climate change risks to the HES Estate has already improved our ability to prioritise and allocate resources more efficiently. A strategic evidence based approach to managing climate risk is helping us give our properties, and the wider historic environment, a fighting chance of weathering the challenges presented by climate change’

David Harkin, HES

New HES strategy – Our Past, Our Future

In June 2023, HES published a new strategy for the future of Scotland’s historic environment: Our Past, Our Future, which has at its heart the transition to net zero, resilient communities and places and a wellbeing economy.

The strategy, which builds on the previous strategy ‘Our Place in Time’, is intended to provide a roadmap for the next five years and highlights the sector’s shared ambition to make a responsible contribution to Scotland’s economy and use the historic environment to improve people’s wellbeing. It also has a strong focus on the transition to net zero alongside a forward-looking ambition to empower communities and build a wellbeing economy.

The strategy also sets out the goal of further retrofitting and putting Scotland’s traditional buildings back into use; estimates put these buildings at representing 19% of Scotland’s housing stock, 33% of retail space, and almost 50% of spaces used by the public sector.


Increasing skills for adapting and maintaining traditional buildings

In addition to assessing their own properties for exposure to natural and climatic hazards, Historic Environment Scotland is pioneering work to up-skill the public and professionals so Scotland is better able to adapt and maintain its traditional buildings from the impacts of climate change.

Changes in the climate, such as increased severe weather events, are already causing problems for many of Scotland’s traditional building and will continue to do so. However, these problems are also being made worse by poor maintenance. HES have been actively undertaking and enabling a range of activities and research to improve the quality and availability of skills and knowledge across the sector and beyond to future proof the historic environment, see the case study here.

See also the guidance document produced by HES, Edinburgh World Heritage and Edinburgh Adapts here:

Download pdf

Trialling new techniques to preserve historic structures

Many of Scotland’s iconic monuments survive as unroofed standing structures with open wallheads and exposed historic masonry. Increasing levels of rainfall and extreme weather events can lead to erosion of the historic fabric and loss of structural integrity through processes such as water penetration, increased freeze-thaw cycles and damaging plant colonisation.

HES have undertaken trials of ‘soft-capping’ techniques at a number of sites across the country, applying an impermeable clay layer beneath living vegetation on wallheads and roofs.

Carefully selected slow growing vegetation types are designed to reduce rainwater runoff and withstand extremes of weather, requiring minimal maintenance. The results are both visually acceptable and technically appropriate for protecting some of Scotland’s most vulnerable historic structures.


Protecting prehistoric remains

Severe coastal wind erosion has caused the collapse of the dune system which protected the Links of Noltland prehistoric settlement site on Westray, Orkney for thousands of years.

In response, HES initiated a programme of detailed assessment, survey, and targeted rescue excavations in 2006. This was followed by dune stabilisation works, including dune recharge, fitting biodegradable erosion resistant matting, planting and sand entrapment to protect the surviving archaeological remains for future generations.

Recent inspection confirms that these measures are working and that the area is being recolonised by vegetation. Many of Scotland’s most vulnerable archaeological sites and monuments are located on the coast and this project provides a model for the stabilisation of similar sites.