John Burnside is the Environment & Sustainability Manager with NHS Highland. He sets out below how NHS Highland have piloted a climate change risk assessment toolkit across their operations and estate.

NHS Highland has responsibility for over 230 buildings spread across an area equivalent to the size of Belgium. Many of the communities that we service are remote and rural, which creates particular challenges when thinking about climate risk. To ensure that we are able to provide high quality health services to the diverse communities in the Highlands, we are piloting a climate change risk assessment toolkit. The initial approach to assessing climate risks was developed in collaboration with NHS National Services Scotland as part of a cross sector Risk Assessment Working Group, which brought together Scottish Water, Aberdeen City Council and Historic Environment Scotland and was facilitated by Adaptation Scotland. An internal NHS working group was then established to oversee the development of the risk assessment tool, ensuring that it is user friendly for Health Boards.

At NHS Highland, we were the first Board to use the risk assessment tool to undertake a comprehensive regional assessment of current and future climate risk to health care facilities. SEPA data on flood risk and a high level Climate Change Impact Assessment for NHS Highland were used to inform the process. We also undertook internal workshops to understand how past extreme weather impacted on the delivery of healthcare services across our Estate. Over the past year, the risk assessment toolkit has been tested and reviewed by our estate managers. Their practical insights and feedback have helped us to develop an easy to use resource that can be applied to our main regional hospitals and smaller community health centres. We have also spent time building internal capacity around climate change risk and adaptation.

Our estate is managed to a 12 month maintenance cycle, and staff are used to thinking about their roles their workplaces within this 12 month context. This can make it difficult to think about long term challenges of climate change in their day to day jobs. As we roll out the climate change risk assessment toolkit, we’ll be working with staff on site to ensure that climate risk and adaptation are well understood, and adaptation is integrated into the way we manage our health care facilities.

Once we have collected information on the climate risks relating to the estate, these will be incorporated into site-based risk registers, which will feed into our corporate risk register and strategic risk register.

Building a strong evidence base for climate risk and embedding it into our risk registers will give us a clear understanding of the long term challenges and opportunities of maintaining healthcare facilities across our estate.

Scottish Canals are responsible for managing over 4100 assets that comprise our five Scottish canals, as well as the bridges, buildings, locks, water supply reservoirs and landmarks like the Falkirk Wheel and the Kelpies that make up Scotland’s inland waterways network. Much of this 140-mile network is inland, with only 6 coastal connections that are vulnerable to rising sea levels. The rest of the network is reasonably resilient to climate impacts in the short term, and can even contribute to resilience more broadly through initiatives such as the Glasgow Smart Canal Project. The Smart Canal is helping to manage flood risk and move water resources during projected hotter and drier summers.

Each one of its diverse assets has unique management and maintenance challenges which must be addressed to ensure that they remain safe and available for the millions of visitors who use the network each year. In the long term climate change will alter the way the assets deteriorate, and Scottish Canals’ Asset Management Strategy ensures that when making management decisions, climate impacts are taken into consideration, such as potential changes in rainfall, temperature and extreme weather that will contribute to the deterioration of assets.

To respond to uncertainty around how climate change will interact with its assets in the long term, Scottish Canals have developed a flexible planning approach to manage its assets in a way that is responsive to emerging risks. The Asset Management Strategy outlines how they will manage their priorities until 2030 to ensure the safety and long term sustainability of their assets. This long-term strategic direction is delivered through a 3 year forward looking Asset Management Plan that is reviewed and updated on an annual basis. This flexible management cycle allows Scottish Canals to take new and emerging risks into account, including those related to climate change.

Our flexible, risk-based approach to asset management is agile and responsive to direct and indirect climate impacts, allowing us to prioritise and plan a work programme that keeps Scotland’s canals safe and productive

Peter Robinson

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Video of Scottish Canals case study

Horticulture and visitor services staff at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh and its Regional Gardens are already adapting to climate uncertainty – dealing with floods, prolonged periods of low rainfall, unseasonable temperatures and high winds, and the impacts of pests, diseases and invasive non-native species. This case study looks at the process used to investigate the impact of weather events across the different gardens and how this can be used to best deal with projected climate change.

Some adaptation measures include:

• Planting a mix of species. This increases resilience to pests and diseases, and provides a more effective windbreak and structure to shelter belts.
• When re-designing garden infrastructure, locate facilities such as visitor centres and cafes outside the pay zone to provide access even if the garden is closed.
• When planning staff resource and time, include allowance for clearup and remedial work following extreme weather events.
• Replacing paths with gravel or other porous materials.
• Providing additional drainage and factoring in staff time for keeping drains clear.

On 1 October 2021, chief executives, directors and other senior leaders from 70 organisations in Scotland participated in the Scottish Government-hosted National Climate Resilience Summit. This Summit was an opportunity to raise collective ambitions for an inclusive, resilient, net zero Scotland and demonstrate support for a global deal on adaptation at COP26 in Glasgow.

A National Climate Resilience Summit ambition statement was proposed to provide delegates with an opportunity to demonstrate and communicate enhanced ambition and collective leadership on climate resilience through their own networks and channels, in support of a global deal on adaptation at COP26. More than 50 organisations and senior leaders have to date endorsed this statement or committed to taking it to their board or appropriate governance structures.

Read more about the Summit in the report below.

Recognising the financial, safety and reputational consequences of extreme weather and climate change, FirstGroup UK Bus (Scotland) – together with ScotRail – participated in a pilot project run by Adaptation Scotland and backed by Scotland’s 2020 Climate Group. This case study shows how Adaptation Scotland helped FirstGroup to understand and start planning for long-term climate change.

Adaptation Scotland helped FirstGroup UK Bus (Scotland) to compile a record of weather events which had recently caused serious financial, safety and reputational consequences. Evidence was gathered from internal records, media reports and staff experiences.

Adaptation Scotland then helped FirstGroup UK Bus (Scotland) to visualise how current vulnerabilities might alter in light of projected climate change, and what threats and opportunities these pose to the business

Climate Ready Ken and Adaptation Scotland project members in Dumfries

This case study shares the insights of local partners from the Loch Ken Trust in Dumfries and Galloway, about their journey embarking on building climate resilience in the area as part of Adaptation Scotland’s localities work programme 2020 – 2022.

Improving river quality and reducing flood risk with the communities of the Eddleston Water in the Scottish Borders.

The Eddleston Water is a sub catchment of the River Tweed. It measures 69 square km. The main stream is 12km. Lying to the North of Peebles in the Scottish Borders, the Eddleston Water covers a large area of hill and improved grassland. The Eddleston Water Project aims to reduce flood risk and restore the Eddleston Water for the benefit of the local community and wildlife.

The project is a partnership initiative led by Tweed Forum, with the Scottish Government, SEPA and University of Dundee, and works with a range of other key partners, including landowners and the local community so that everyone can contribute ideas and follow the project’s progress.

Work to slow the flow and increase storage of flood waters is ongoing across the catchment, including using techniques such as:

1. Planting native woodland on floodplains and in hill cleuchs. The trees and coarse grass generated will help slow the surface flow rate which will help take the peak off the flood water.
2. Creating new water retention ponds to capture flood water. Re-meandering canalised ditches and watercourses will encourage a more natural watercourse ecosystem to develop.
3. Installing log-jams in the headwaters to slow down run-off. This will benefit water quality, wildlife and the fisheries.

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This film includes more information about the work that is being carried out in the Eddleston Water catchment

For more information, see the project website here where there is also a progress report from 2021 available to download.

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:

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.

The building of the Queensferry Crossing provided an opportunity for Amey, who manage and maintain the crossing, to incorporate changes that will allow the bridge to be more resilient to severe weather conditions and a changing climate.

When Amey were appointed as operators of The Forth Road Bridge and Queensferry Crossing in 2015, they became the single company maintaining and managing the crossings of the Forth River. The construction of the new Queensferry Crossing was already underway at that time, however, Amey were able to bring in experience of other crossings, as well as learnings from recent closures on the Forth Road Bridge and put in place a number of systems to increase the capacity of both bridges 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. 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, and therefore stay open when the Forth Road Bridge would have been closed.

These changes included using the latest and most durable materials, cables that can be replaced with more ease than on the Forth Road Bridge 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 was 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.

This case study shares our experience of developing a pilot approach for using participatory mapping to gather lived experience and local knowledge of climate change impacts and community priorities for adaptation in North Uist. It is part of our wider work with partners in the Outer Hebrides.

It provides details of the approach taken, some of our key learning and recommendations for use in other locations and contexts. It also provides links to some of the tools and resources used.

Find out more about our work in the Outer Hebrides, or read our guide to running a similar mapping activity in your own community.