Working together to adapt to a changing climate

Research supported authorities to work with communities when planning to reduce flood and coastal erosion risks.

Working together to adapt to a changing climate - flood and coast

Rhys Kelly1, Ute Kelly1, Helen Bovey2, Karen Saunders2, Steve Smith2, Kate Kipling3 and Cath Brooks3

1 University of Bradford, United Kingdom

The Environment Agency led on the Working together to adapt to a changing climate initiative from 2018 to 2022. Through this research, there was a change in understanding how to work collaboratively with partners and communities on climate adaptation.

The team articulated 6 challenges that exist when engaging with partners and the public about climate adaptation. Then, they co-created tools with 2 communities – Caterham Hill and Old Coulsdon and Hemsby – to address these challenges. The new knowledge and tools led to better community engagement and more effective partnerships. One of these tools underpinned the successful start to a £200 million flooding and coastal resilience programme.

The Environment Agency used one of the tools, the readiness assessment tool, for 25 projects under the £200 million Flood and Coastal Resilience Innovation Programme. The tool identified risks, ensured partners had the same level of understanding and aspirations, improved partnership working and enabled more partners to be involved, and earlier. This underpinned the successful start of the innovation programme.

A Flood and Coastal Resilience Innovation Programme survey respondent (2021) said:

Without the readiness assessment [tool] the project would probably have slipped by 6 months but [we were] able to identify this issue and change project structure.

The Environment Agency used the readiness assessment tool on 14 projects as part of the £5.2 billion Flood and coastal erosion risk management (FCERM) investment programme. 94% of participants said that readiness assessment helped their project do things in a new, more efficient, or better way.