A Revised National Climate Impacts Profile for Wales

Clive Walmsley,Natural Resources WalesSimon Hartley, AECOM

Lucy Corfield, Welsh Government

Climate Week 2014

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Networks for monitoring climate change

The diversity of climate impacts

The National Climate Impacts Profile approach

• No comprehensive compilation of recent extreme weather events and associated impacts for Wales

• Local Climate Impacts Profile (LCLIP) developed by UKCIP for use by Local Authorities

• AECOM used a modified LCLIP approach for Wales

• Identified on-line media reports of weather events and their impacts over last 13 years (2000-2012)

• Provides a preliminary assessment of the diversity and significance of weather-related impacts in Wales

The National Climate Impacts Profile approach

• Around 128 standard UKCIP defined climate-related search terms and an additional c. 10 local search terms per Local Authority

• Highbeam and Factiva search engines used to search 60 online Welsh media archives including BBC, Western Mail, Wales on Sunday, South Wales Echo & Evening Post, Daily Post and local newspaper sites

The National Climate Impacts Profile approach

• Database provides searchable access to:- weather events and impacts by location and date- which organisation/body/people affected- consequences that occurred- organisations required to make response- qualitative assessment of significance of impact based on extent, severity and duration- details of source of report

• 1098 separate reported weather impacts over the 13 years

Type of weather event reported

Type of weather event reported

Spatial distribution of reported weather events corrected by population

Type of primary impact

Type of primary impact - SAPs

3%13%

25%

26%

33%Business & Tourism

Communities

Health

Infrastructure

Environment

Sector affected

Type of impact reported by weather responsible for impact

Spatial distribution of ‘buildings’ impacted by ‘excessive rainfall’ or flooding’ weather events

Proportion of users/sectors affected by extreme weather impacts

Users/sectors affected by weather responsible for impact

Sectors affected by weather responsible for impact

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

All

Business

& To

urism

Communities

Health

Infrastr

ucture

Envir

onmen

t

Wind

Storm

Other

Low Temp

High Temp

Frost / snow / ice

Excessive rainfall

Drought

Spatial distribution of ‘building users’ impacted by ‘excessive rainfall’ or flooding’ weather events

Reported weather events of ‘High’ significance by weather type

Conclusions

• Impacts within the database include most identified by CCRA and Welsh scoping study AND some impacts that it did not e.g. crime increase in hot weather

• Media reporting of extreme weather and its impacts is inconsistent and biased – ‘frost/ice/snow’ events produced more reports than ‘drought’ or ‘high winds’

• Media reports are largely concerned with immediate impacts on people so long-term effects or effects on the environment are rarely reported

• Evidence that greater media reporting of weather events and impacts, as well as greater frequency of impacts, over decade

World Newspaper coverage of ‘climate change’ or ‘global warming’ reports

Conclusions• Approach provides quick and effective search

at relatively low cost to scope climate related impacts

• But, it cannot provide a rigorous assessment of spatial or temporal changes in impacts

• Considerable differences in spatial distribution of reported weather events and impacts across Local Authorities

• Provides a resource for all Local Authorities to help consider adaptation but could be also useful more widely

Media researchers:Sandy Miles; Michael Green, Anne Lockett, Clare Wallace; Mark Morant; Simon Hartley; Jess Hogg

Database validation, reporting and mapping:Simon Hartley, Mark Morant

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Acknowledgements