This study contrasts and compares how jurisdictions develop and monitor their strategic plans for achieving greenhouse gas (GHG) emission reductions. This is useful insight as the Scottish Government develops plans to meet the targets in the Scottish Climate Change Act.

The study looked at 16 jurisdictions (12 national and four sub-national). Of these, eight national and sub-national jurisdictions – Belgium (including Flanders and Wallonia), Germany (including Baden Württemberg), Netherlands, New Zealand and Sweden – were then reviewed in more detail. These were selected based on various criteria, including the level of ambition in their climate plans, the modelling approach used, sub-national links and innovative approaches taken.

Main findings:

• Only two of the eight jurisdictions have either legislated, or are legislating for, a net zero target.
• Some have expressed their GHG emission reduction targets as an absolute economy-wide percentage reduction of all GHGs compared to a 1990 baseline. However, there are cases where jurisdictions have chosen to exclude certain sectors from the economy-wide targets being set.
• When setting a 2050 GHG emissions reduction target, most jurisdictions have set a 2030 target to act as a stepping stone along the way.
• All jurisdictions had common elements, for example quantitative assessment of emission reduction potential and the associated costs.
• Jurisdictions would typically enter into political decision-making process which involves engagement with their political parties, key industry players, civil society and academia.
• Jurisdictions identified the importance of a clear governance and institutional set-up to ensure implementation and regular review of the climate plan. For most jurisdictions, the implementation was led by the Environment Ministry, with support from several other ministries.

Managed adaptive approaches to planning can outperform traditional methods in the context of climate change. Managed adaptive flood risk planning, unlike traditional ‘predict then adapt’ approaches, anticipates the fact that as learning about the climate takes place, future Flood Risk Management (FRM) planners will have more detailed information on flood risks than current planners.

This project uses international case studies to illustrate how adaptive approaches can be implemented in practical settings. 

It therefore places a positive value on affording future FRM planners flexibility to adapt appropriately to the superior information on risks that they will have at their disposal.

In Scotland, high-level guidance strongly endorses managed adaptive planning. The guidance states that flood risk management planning should be forward looking, acknowledge that future climate change risk is uncertain, promote managed adaptive planning as a means for dealing with this uncertainty, and endorse the use of real options analysis for appraising climate-sensitive investments. 

However, of 42 flood risk management schemes approved for the current planning cycle, 25 schemes are designed to provide a fixed standard of protection, of which 11 include an allowance for the future. None of the schemes incorporate adaptive plans or make reference to multiple climate change scenarios. Scottish case studies examined by this study nonetheless show that adaptive planning is both feasible and valuable, across a variety of relevant contexts.

We identified the following barriers to adaptive management:

• The lack of an adaptive mindset among all stakeholders, including practitioners and the general public. 
• The lack of a standardised methodology to generate adaptive plans. 
• The lack of a standardised methodology for economic appraisal of adaptive plans. 
• Funding mechanisms can disincentivise managed adaptive planning and promote large scale interventions. 
• Planning boundaries.

To address some of these barriers, this report makes recommendations to extend SEPA guidance on adaptive planning. The recommendations set out more prescriptive guidance on how adaptive planning should be implemented, assisting FRM planners in overcoming methodological hurdles and ensuring a greater degree of consistency between responsible authorities.

Recommendations include:

• Local FRM planners specify within their objectives (i) to manage flood risk at the catchment level, and (ii) to manage uncertain risks, noting that uncertainty on the climate and local exposure/vulnerability is expected to unfold over time. These aspects of the objectives should be made explicit in invitations to tender for flood studies.
• Where an adaptive approach is to be followed, candidate plans are constructed following four steps: (i) plans are built up from a set of schemes, including NFM options, that individually provide a range of standards of protection; (ii) schemes are screened using a multi-criteria approach that accounts for the benefits of flexibility; (iii) trigger points are identified under a set of climate or development scenarios, in which schemes cease to provide an acceptable level of protection; (iv) candidate plans are developed as sequences of contingent interventions, which can be triggered by future assessments of flood risk, designed to provide acceptable levels of protection over the whole planning horizon.
• Plans are appraised using a net present value criterion based on real options analysis, which accounts for the likelihood of different climate or development scenarios.
• Plans are implemented and updated using risk models held by responsible authorities.

*Please note there was a typo in original report download. Under the introduction on p6 it stated ‘sea levels have risen by 1cm since the 1920s’. This should be 10cm. This has been updated on the PDF* 

Community resilience and climate policy has the potential to be complimentary and mutually beneficial. However, there has been limited attention from both research and practice on how to capitalise on the opportunities such synergies provide for achieving more effective outcomes, and on how they can be maximised through policy development and implementation processes.

This project has looked at a spectrum of approaches and methods for joined-up working; from co-operation (shared information and mutual support) to co-ordination (common tasks with common goals) and collaboration (integrated strategies and shared purpose).

There is a significant gap in evaluation of the identified methods in terms of the quality of the collaborative process. Nevertheless, the review identified critical factors in creating a culture for collaboration. This involves identifying or developing structures and practices that actively enable and reward effective collaborations, and learns and shares the lessons learnt from each collaborative effort.

Incremental, piecemeal reduction of the functional fluvial floodplain is a threat to sustainable flood risk management in Scotland. From a flood risk management (FRM) perspective, removal of functional floodplain will often increase flood risk elsewhere, for example by increasing water levels upstream or downstream. Floodplain loss also results in ecological loss.

Despite Scottish Planning Policy seeking to safeguard functional floodplain, there are a number of reasons for loss, including historical planning permissions, householder and agricultural permitted developments and the cumulative effect of small scale developments.

Climate change is expected to have a significant impact on flood risk. As the frequency and magnitude of heavy rain events increase in the coming years, it is likely the frequency and magnitude of fluvial flooding will also increase.

Based on a literature review this report sets out a possible method for estimating floodplain loss and corresponding flood risk impacts. The method uses:

• information from historical maps and aerial photography;
• other datasets (such as the locations of embankments per the SEPA Morphological Pressures Database); and
• terrain information (if available).

Together this can drive the SEPA national flood map models using different digital terrain data for different time periods (therefore representing change in the functional floodplain) and simulate floodplain loss over time.

To inform a review of the Scottish Government’s climate change public engagement strategy, this report identifies and evaluates different approaches to grouping or segmenting the public according to their attitudes and behaviours related to climate change. In addition, to ensure the new strategy is based on the most up-to-date evidence, it reviews the dominant ideas on how to change behaviour.

Key findings regarding how to influence behaviour change are:

• While there have been many studies published in this area recently, behaviours and practices remain the dominant lenses.
• Behaviour change research remains a highly active area, but it has not seen any fundamentally different or significantly more effective approach introduced in the last five years.
• There is a growing evidence base highlighting the limitations of focusing on changing beliefs and attitudes with the intention of changing behaviour.
• Research also highlights the limits on what individual and collective choice can achieve and the limits of ‘nudging’ or manipulating choice architecture. This is not to say these approaches are not effective. However, a more interventionist approach is necessary to achieve the radical changes to our lifestyles required by the Scottish Government’s carbon-reduction targets.
• Using an interrelated practice lens rather than the existing behaviour-based approach will have significant benefits in guiding the interventions required by our climate change obligations.

Key findings regarding segmentation:

• Segmentation is a useful tool for helping to develop public knowledge and attitudes. However, it has limited effect on stimulating actions supporting new low-carbon behaviours over the long term when used to target information-based campaigns.
• It is challenging to identify which segmentation variables (and in which combinations) are the most effective and should be used as the basis for targeted climate change engagement. This is due to a) the broad range of variables used across the themes of housing, transport, consumption/waste, food and diet; b) inconsistent and missing evidence across a large number of studies reviewed; and c) conceptual limitations of the dominant belief-attitude-intention pathway.

The research summarises the most important and trustworthy segmentation studies into two tables. Then, to allow users to identify the variables used and to what effect, the available evidence has been formatted into an online database.

Large areas of Scotland experienced significant water scarcity between July and September 2018. This resulted in over 500 private water supplies running dry nationwide.

165 of the reported supplies that ran dry were located in Aberdeenshire – a region particularly impacted because of a high number of shallow, surface-based supplies to private dwellings. 

However, the research found that the response to the crisis was generally effective and welcomed by those reliant on the private water supplies that had failed or experienced problems.

To reduce the pressures on Scottish Water and Local authorities, and the significant use of public funds during droughts, policy should aim to reduce the numbers of existing and new private water supplies.

This could be achieved through means such as improving assistance when pursuing a public mains water supply connection and encouraging new building developments to connect to the public mains supply rather than be reliant on a private water supply.

This project was completed by Chris Holdsworth as part of a funded internship under the ECCI Consultancy Innovation Programme.

This report looks at the governance of Flood Risk Management (FRM) in Scotland with the aim of identifying areas for improvement to develop shared agendas among all FRM stakeholders. Furthermore, this project includes the additional aim of investigating Transport Scotland’s (TS) role within Scotland’s FRM framework and whether their role should be reconsidered; primarily by discussing the potential for making TS a ‘responsible authority’ (RA) under the Flood Risk Management (Scotland) Act 2009 (FRMA).

This work is useful because there is a need to develop shared agendas among all stakeholders involved in FRM in Scotland. Currently, stakeholder objectives are not aligned on a nationwide level with many stakeholders operating under their own agenda and prerogative. While this is understandable, we believe there is an opportunity to focus on nationwide objectives for the progress of FRM in Scotland. This work is further useful as while TS operates to keep transport networks open and FRM is, therefore, part of what they do. They are not legally required to carry out FRM functions. For that reason, it is at least worth starting the discussion of whether TS should become a ‘responsible authority’.

This project was completed by Blair Mackie as part of a funded internship under the ECCI Consultancy Innovation Programme.

Scotland will experience more frequent and more severe droughts in the coming decades due to climate change. This will influence water availability for drinking water, agriculture and ecosystems.

This report looks at this future risk of water scarcity in Scotland, and the link between water scarcity and land use options. We found that mainly East-Scotland is prone to water scarcity in the summer, and that the expected wetter winters will not be able to make up for the lower precipitation in the summer.

As droughts become more severe and occur more frequently, water supply systems should become more resilient to droughts. This can be done by re-evaluating the balance between the costs for increasing resilience against low water supply episodes, and the probability of their occurrence for all water supply systems.

During re-evaluation, the expected low water episodes in the coming decades should be taken into account, as changes in drought risks are happening at a fast rate. This will help the prevention of water shortage during low precipitation episodes. These evaluations need to be performed by SEPA, who will need to collaborate tight with Scottish Water and the Scottish Government to improve the water supply system resilience.

This project was completed by Annemiek Waajen as part of a funded internship under the ECCI Consultancy Innovation Programme.

Changes in land management (e.g. increasing woodland extent) can increase the number of Lyme disease infected ticks. At the same time nature based tourism, which can expose visitors to ticks and infection, is an important contributor to Scotland’s rural economy and employment.

Sectoral decisions taken in isolation can potentially conflict with other policy outcomes. It is therefore important to recognise and untangle these cross-cutting issues. This paper sets out a method for characterising and analysing a cross-sectoral adaptation issue.

Lyme disease provides a good example of a cross-cutting issue, as the drivers and impacts of Lyme disease cut across a number of policy areas including: health, agriculture, forestry, conservation, biodiversity, rural economy, outdoor recreation and tourism. An informed approach to Lyme disease that accounts for complexity and interaction can help avoid conflicts and enable more efficient use of resources.