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2013
Highlighting research and communication at the Tyndall Centre

Cities & Coasts

Energy & Emissions

Governance & Behaviour

Water & Land

Modelling Facilities

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Professor Corinne Le Qur

theeffect
2011
Highlighting research and communication at the Tyndall Centre

 Director and Professor of Climate Change Science and Policy, UEA

New Fudan Tyndall Centre in Shanghai

Welcome
Since the last edition of the Effect magazine in 2011, my colleagues have been busy.
change is to be agreed. I also want to help promote a wider use of our integrated assessment tools, for example through the new interdisciplinary research initiative Future Earth, where I aim to embrace the use of the internet as an open research space, for us to be more inclusive of who contributes to new knowledge, and to be more sustainable; essential criteria for problem-solving research for the 21st Century. Being Director of the worldrenowned Tyndall Centre is a stimulating experience. I hope your reading of the Effect conveys to you some of our new knowledge on climate change. Professor Corinne Le Qur Director

Professor Robert Watson

Flood Risk Geoengineering Assessment Sea Level Tidal Energy Public Perceptions Water Emissions

 Director of Strategy and Professor of Environ mental Sciences, UEA

Our 200 researchers across eight

Professor Kevin Anderson

Universities published 168 peer-reviewed academic papers on the implications of climate change for society and options to respond to it. Fifteen of these papers were published in the premier journal

 Deputy Director and Professor of Energy and Climate Change, University of Manchester

Professor Trevor Davies

Nature Climate Change, demonstrating our interdisciplinary excellence. This highquality research is the evidence base by which we strive to inform policy and society, and to promote constructive discussions. In the UK, colleagues are looking particularly at climate change impacts including on urban infrastructure, at public perceptions, and at UK and EU policy on adaptation and energy. In China, joint research has begun at our new Tyndall Centre in Fudan University, Shanghai, into Chinese water security, human migration, air pollution, product labelling, carbon emissions, and an integrated assessment model. Many of our researchers are deeply involved in the latest state-of-the-science assessment by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change published in 2013-2014. I now hope to help focus upcoming research towards the 2015 policy milestone of the United Nations, when a new international treaty on climate

 Deputy Director of International Activities and Pro-Vice Chancellor, UEA

Our Research
2012-2017

Research strategy 2012-2017

The Tyndall Centres first decade focused on interdisciplinary climate change research. Our second decade in addition focuses on the interactions and feedbacks between climate, people and ecosystems. www.tyndall.ac.uk/researchstrategy

twitter@tyndallcentre

www.tyndall.ac.uk

 rofessor Jim Watson of Tyndall Centre Sussex is now P Director of the UK Energy Research Centre

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News in brief
Public supports a low carbon UK
The Understanding Risk research group at Tyndall Cardiff has shown that the British public overwhelmingly supports a move away from fossil fuels towards a greater reliance on renewable energy production and a reduction in energy use.

reaching a record high of 35.6 billion tonnes of CO2. The publication is led jointly by Professor Corinne Le Qur at Tyndall UEA.

by the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research.

Water security
Researchers at Tyndall Centre Fudan and UEA are investigating the impacts of climate change on one of Chinas largest and most polluted rivers, the River Huai. A growing portfolio of Fudan Tyndall Centre research is addressing issues of high priority in China.

Ecosystem services
Professor Sir Bob Watson, the Tyndall Centres Director of Strategy, co-authored a paper in Science showing the British landscape is not being used to its best advantage, written in partnership with environmental economists from UEA.

i-BUILD
i-BUILD is a new 3.5m programme to develop an integrated approach to local infrastructure networks and investment for energy, water, transport, waste, ICT. i-Build is led by Professor Richard Dawson at Tyndall Newcastle.

Shale gas
The emissions benefits of switching to shale gas are overstated, concludes research by Tyndall Centre Manchester commissioned by the Coooperative.

Food farming
Greenhouse gas targets will be missed unless the UK takes account of the potential impacts of climate change on food-related emissions, says a report from the Sustainable Consumption Institute and Tyndall Manchester.

Canadian economics
If Canada had reduced its CO2 emissions instead of withdrawing from the Kyoto Protocol, the result in 2020 could have been small increases in GDP and employment, not the $36.2bn cost cited as the Governments reason, shows Tyndall Cambridge. They published their analysis days after Canadas announcement.

Carbon high
The annual global carbon budget published by the Global Carbon Project showed that emissions would rise again in 2012,

Technology transfer
Low-Carbon Technology Transfer from rhetoric to reality is a new book edited by Dr David Ockwell of Tyndall Sussex, published by Routledge.

An academic publication about the Tyndall Coastal Simulator has been awarded the 2012 Lloyds Science of Risk prize. A new book on the Coastal Simulator, Broad Scale Coastal Simulation, is published by Springer.

Energy Centre
A new 3.7m research centre is examining how new ideas in energy efficiency and energy saving are developed and how they can be encouraged. Dr Steve Sorrell of Tyndall Sussex leads the new centre on Innovation and Energy Demand.

Burning questions
A new 3.5m bioenergy research hub is investigating the efficiency and sustainability of bioenergy techniques. It spans six research Institutes and involves ten industrial partners. The Director is Dr Patricia Thornley of Tyndall Manchester.

2C and beyond
HELIX is a new 9m EU funded research programme investigating the global impacts of high emissions scenarios and their consequences for food, water, human and energy security. Tyndall UEA is a partner in the HELIX consortium led by the University of Exeter.

Europes Cities
RAMSES is new 5m EU funded research that will develop and design strategies to evaluate the impacts of adaptation to climate change in cities. Tyndall Newcastle is a partner in the RAMSES consortium led

Energy policies not in line with public support for a low carbon UK are likely to encounter significant public concern shows research by Tyndall Centre Cardiff

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SOUTHAMPTON

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Protect global trade from East Asian coastal flooding

It is costly but manageable to adapt the coasts of China, Japan and South Korea to the average sea level rise that is projected by 2050. The regions ports are responsible for one-fifth of global trade and home to 180 million people.
Robert Nicholls

adaptation for the Republic of Korea up to USD 1.9 billion per year, USD 2.3 billion for Japan and USD 2.6 billion for the Peoples Republic of China. This is in addition to the maintenance of pre-existing dikes. Thankfully there is a long history in the region of hard protection and land claim using dikes, and so future extension and upgrade is consistent with the past says Professor Robert Nicholls of the Faculty of Engineering and the Environment and the Tyndall Centre at the University of Southampton. The work was commissioned by the Asian Development Bank. China would benefit most from adapting to sea-level rise. Its rising coastal population and associated infrastructure could suffer estimated annual damage up to USD 53 billion under a scenario of high emissions with increased cyclones and no protection. Even with a low projected sea-level rise, damage costs could reach almost USD 30 billion annually. Chinas ports also require adaptation investment, estimated at between a relatively minor USD 0.25 and 0.3 billion per year.

The financial costs of future sea-level rise are associated with sea defence upgrade, flooding, land loss and forced migration due to erosion and permanent submergence of land. The costs of

The cost of protecting Chinas coast from sealevel rise is USD 2.6bn per year. The costs of damage range between USD 20 billion to 53 billion

i Further information
The full report Cost of adaptation to rising coastal water levels for the Peoples Republic of China, Japan, and the Republic of Korea is published by the Asian Development Bank. www.adb.org Robert Nicholls is Professor of Engineering and the Environment at the University of Southampton and co-leads the Tyndall Centres Cities and Coasts theme of research. www.tyndall.ac.uk/ research/cities-and-coasts

Credit: age fotostock/Robert Harding

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OXFORD Newcastle Cambridge

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Londons climate risks reduced

Katie Jenkins at the Environmental Change Institute at the University of Oxford, Dr Alistair Ford at Newcastle University, and Professor Doug Crawford-Brown at the University of Cambridge, have developed a new system for analysing climate risks to cities. The ARCADIA project assesses choices for adapting City infrastructure to the impacts of climate change, using London as its case-study.
KATIE JENKINS Alistair FORD

about climate risks to the city economy, built environment, urban land-use and infrastructure says Katie Jenkins. Cities globally are developing strategies for reducing the risks of climate change but they often lack the evidence that they need for informed decisions about what is likely to happen and where. ARCADIA provides a whole system approach for assessing adaptation strategies. A sister project, the Infrastructure Transitions Research Consortium (ITRC) is led by Professor Jim Hall, Oxford. It analyses the impact of risks, including climate, on urban infrastructure networks such as energy, transport and IT. A new EU programme, RAMSES, is extending Tyndall Newcastle work to Europe. ARCADIA incorporates the Tyndall partners at Oxford and Newcastle for its climate, transport and impact models, and Cambridge for the economic analysis, joined with University College London for modeling of the built environment and landuse change. It integrates these different models and data together in a framework for a whole system understanding of how they interact now and in the future.

A new system for analysing climate risks to cities using London as the case-study has been developed by Tyndall Centres Oxford, Newcastle and Cambridge

i Further information
Katie Jenkins models direct and indirect economic impacts of climate change. Alistair Ford is a researcher in Geomatics. Doug Crawford-Brown is Director of the Cambridge Centre for Climate Mitigation Research. ARCADIA Report www.arcc-cn.org.uk/project-summaries/ arcadia/

Cities and urban areas are vulnerable to climate change because of their high concentrations of people and economic assets. ARCADIA helps decisions

Credit: Neil Emmerson/Robert Harding

ARCADIA (Adaptation and Resilience in Cities Analysis and Decision-making using Integrated Assessments) is an evolution of the approaches pioneered for the Tyndall Urban Integrated Assessment System for incorporating data from different models and working alongside decision makers, to ensure that the research outputs are useful to stakeholders needs, such as the Greater London Authority.

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UEA

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Early mitigation brings benefits to common species

Acting quickly to limit global warming to 2C could reduce biodiversity losses by forty per cent compared to the damage expected with the current climate trajectory of 4C shows research led by Dr Rachel Warren at Tyndall UEA and published in Nature Climate Change.
rachel warren

as increasing their climatic range by more than 50%. Plants, reptiles and particularly amphibians are expected to be at highest risk because of their slower speeds of dispersal. SubSaharan Africa, Central America, Amazonia and Australia would lose the most species of plants and animals. A major loss of plant species is projected for North Africa, Central Asia and South-eastern Europe. Rachel Warren says: The good news is that our research provides new evidence of how swift action to reduce CO2 and other greenhouse gases can prevent the biodiversity loss by reducing the amount of global warming to 2 degrees Celsius rather than 4 degrees. Other symptoms of climate change such as extreme weather events and global change such as pests and diseases mean that my figures are probably conservative. Animals may decline more because they lack their food plants.
Credit: Still Pictures/Robert Harding

Loses in the range of common species are reduced by 40% for animals and 35% for plants if global emissions were to peak in 2030

i Further information
Dr Rachel Warren is Reader at UEAs School of Environmental Sciences, a NERC Advanced Research Fellow, and leads the Tyndall Centres Community Integrated Assessment Modelling System (CIAS) Information on the species came from the datasets shared online by hundreds of volunteers, scientists and natural history collections through the Global Biodiversity Information Facility. www.gbif.org Quantifying the benefit of early climate change mitigation in avoiding biodiversity loss is published in Nature Climate Change, May 12, 2013. www.nature/nclimate

Rachel Warren and her colleagues modelled 49,000 globally widespread and common plants and animals, their climatic ranges and their dispersal patterns. They found that without any reduction in greenhouse gases, 57% of plants and 34% of animals will lose more than half of their climatic range by 2080. These loses in range are reduced by 40% for animals and by 35% for plants if global emissions were to peak in 2030. A peak as early as 2016 reduces losses by 60%. There has been much research on the effect of climate change on rare and endangered species but little is known about more common species. Only four percent of animals and no plants were beneficiaries of global warming, assessed

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CAMBRIDGE

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Developing nations key to global mitigation

Developing nations have the biggest effect on stabilising the climate shows an analysis of potential policies by Professor Doug Crawford-Brown of the Cambridge Centre for Climate Mitigation Research and the Tyndall Centre.
Doug Crawford-Brown

i Further information
Professor Douglas Crawford-Brown is Director of the Cambridge Centre for Climate Mitigation Research and Professor Emeritus of Environmental Science and Policy, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Assessing the Sensitivity of Climate Change Targets to Policies of Land Use, Energy Demand, Low Carbon Energy and Population Growth is published in the Journal of Environmental Protection, 3, 1615-1624 (2012) The model developed for this analysis by Doug Crawford-Brown is described in the Journal of Geoscience Education, 54, 3, 101-120, (2006) Teaching systems principles and policy applications using reduced-scale global warming model Cambridge Centre for Climate Mitigation Research www.4cmr.group.cam.ac.uk

The research provides support to international climate negotiations that increasingly recognise that without important efforts for controlling emissions originating from developing countries, CO2 in the atmosphere could double regardless of decarbonisation by developed nations.

Ranked in order of the biggest impact on reducing CO2 in the atmosphere are; developing nations per capita growth, carbon intensity and population control, followed by developed nations carbon intensity and per capita growth. The impact of all policies is doubled when global population is stabilised first, and reducing deforestation has a minor effect. Effectiveness of a policy is measured as the extra years gained before atmospheric CO2 is doubled. This is further evidence for developed nations to have a special responsibility to assist with the decarbonisation of developing nations through transfer of technology and knowledge and finance innovation says Doug Crawford-Brown.

Reducing deforestation has a minor effect on reducing global CO2 emissions shows analysis by Tyndall Cambridge

Credit: Still Pictures/Robert Harding

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UEA

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Efficiency reduces emissions more

More must be done to innovate in energy efficiency because it contributes larger emissions reductions and higher social returns compared to investing in energy supply shows research by Dr Charlie Wilson of the Tyndall Centre at the University of East Anglia.
charlie wilson

Efficiency in energy end-use outperforms supply technologies in all three areas. They occupy a greater share of energy system investments and capacity, engage higher levels of private sector activity, offer higher potential cost reductions, and provide higher social returns and higher emission reduction potentials. According to the International Energy Agency, the total public sector research and development spend for all energy end-use and efficiency innovations from 19742008 was around $38 billion. This is less than the $41 billion spent on nuclear fusion alone - a single, and highly uncertain energy supply option that has yet to contribute low carbon supply. Subsidies for fossil fuels, estimated at around $500 billion, dwarf innovation investments of around $160 billion into nonfossil fuel energy.

The results, published in Nature Climate Change, show that two-thirds of all public innovation efforts are directed toward energy supply technologies such as new power stations - than is spent on improving the efficiency of energy use such as efficient cars, buildings and domestic appliances. It is vital that innovations in renewable energy supply continue, but the imbalance in spending needs to be redressed urgently to mitigate climate change. Ours and others evidence strongly suggests that energy end use and efficiency currently stand as the most effective ways to mitigate climate change says Charlie Wilson, who led the study with colleagues from Austria and the USA. The researchers considered three desirable outcomes of energy innovation - emission reductions, broader social, environmental and energy security benefits, and the potential for technological improvements.

i Further information
Marginalization of end-use technologies in energy innovation for climate protection is in the October 2012 edition of Nature Climate Change. It builds on collaboration and research under the Global Energy Assessment (GEA). www.nature/nclimate Dr Charlie Wilson is Lecturer in Energy and Climate Change at the University of East Anglia

Credit: Ashley Cooper/Robert Harding

Two-thirds of public innovation is directed toward energy supply technologies yet energy efficiency reduces emissions more and gives higher social returns

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MANCHESTER

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Reversing shipping emissions

Emissions from international shipping typically grow at a faster rate than the average industry and are projected to grow indefinitely this is the departure point of a Special Issue of the journal Carbon Management, guest co-edited by Dr Alice Bows-Larkin of the Tyndall Centre at Manchester University.
alice bows

Research by Sarah Mander and colleagues of Tyndall Manchester explores how decarbonisation of the rest of the UKs energy system has knock-on impacts for shipping. In one scenario, emissions from shipping decrease by up to 80 simply by a change in the pattern of trade in fossil fuel. Carrying oil for fuel is currently one third of UK imports by weight. In a low carbon future, the transport of biofuels could be very influential on shipping activity, depending on what type of ship carries it, and where biofuels come from, potentially Africa and America. Overall, we need a step change in thinking about shipping, cutting across technology, operations and demand If the sector is to avoid lock-in to a continuation of CO2 production, it needs to think more radically, and consider seriously the impact of a shift in demand and the role of renewables for ship propulsionsays Alice Bows.

The widening of the Panama Canal to accommodate bigger container ships might lead to an increase in shipping emissions

i Further information
Dr Alice Bows is Reader in Energy and Climate Change at the University of Manchesters School of Mechanical Aerospace and Civil Engineering (MACE) and Tyndall Centre. Sarah Mander is a Research Fellow in MACE and also at Tyndall Manchester. Shipping and Carbon Emissions is the December 2012 issue of Carbon Management, Guest co-edited by Alice Bows and Tristan Smith of the Energy Institute at University College London www.future-science.com/toc/cmt/3/6

The importance of international trade in supporting poor and rich economies is undisputable says Alice Bows. Nevertheless, shipping will need to make a sea-change to its emissions if it is seeking to make its fair and proportionate contribution to the climate challenge. A complicating factor in influencing ship emissions is that ship voyages involve multiple journeys with many ports of call, departures and arrivals which are sometimes changed en-route. In this special issue, one of the publications uses transport modelling to show that the widening of the Panama Canal to accommodate bigger container ships, instead of reducing distance and emissions, might lead to a significant increase because of rerouting of bigger ships.

Credit: Jane Sweeney/Robert Harding

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NEWCASTLE

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UK cities acknowledge climate challenge

A national appraisal of published and official documents provided by 30 UK cities has compared the performance of the cities and their climate change strategies. The Urban Climate Change Preparedness Score is devised by Dr Oliver Heidrich and his Tyndall Newcastle colleagues.
Oliver Heidrich

The Urban Climate Change Preparedness Score has been devised by Tyndall Newcastle for appraising the strategies of cities

i Further information
Dr Oliver Heidrich is a Senior Researcher in Urban Resource Modelling at the School of Civil Engineering and Geosciences at Newcastle University. Assessment of the climate preparedness of 30 urban areas in the UK is published in Climatic Change, July 2013.

prioritising flooding, water management and health. The assessment is rapid to undertake and easy to visualise and it can be undertaken at regular intervals to determine progress. But, any scoring system may standardise and simplify important place-specific innovation, and the preparedness score assesses only Local Authority documents says Oliver. The preparedness score can also evaluate the preparedness of cities outside of the UK. London and Leicesters documents show that they are the most active and prepared cities. Derry and Wrexham score the lowest because they are early-on in devising their strategies. Stevenage, Stoke, Derry and Wrexham have no mitigation targets. Professor Richard Dawson who leads the researchers at Tyndall Newcastle commented Our work focuses on the re-engineering of city infrastructures. This analysis provides a first overview of the progress of cities across the UK to help identify national progress, target gaps, and enables cities to learn from and compare with each other.

The preparedness score is more informative than a single number as it captures quality and progress and encompasses both adaptation and mitigation says Dr Oliver Heidrich. Thirty urban areas have acknowledged climate change as a threat and that adaptation and mitigation is required by them. Mitigation activities are typically more advanced than adaptation plans, with 87% of cities having emissions reductions targets, although these range from 10% CO2 reduction to a zero carbon economy in 2050. Many have ill-defined timeframes targets such as the provision of training or reduction of air pollution. Similar variability is seen across adaptation plans, with 93% of cities mentioning adaption measures,

Credit: Yadid Levy/Robert Harding

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CARDIFF

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The discussion workshops in 2011 were deliberating the SPICE project, a proposal in the UK led by the University of Bristol for a 1km pipe to pump water into the air, held-up by a helium balloon. The purpose of SPICE is to assess the technical challenges of spraying fine particles into the stratosphere for a global cooling effect. The earths temperature was cooled by half a degree Celsius following the eruption in 1991 of Mount Pinatubo. Few public have heard of geoengineering but as with other science and technology research, when people are provided with information they debate and critically interrogate the technical and social issues says Nick Pidgeon. Public concerns are that geoengineering fails to address the underlying cause of increasing greenhouse gas emissions, there may be possible unintended consequences, and the perceived unnaturalness of the technique. The SPICE team in 2012 decided not to conduct their experiments due to issues of existing patents and the need for regulation of geoengineering research.

Nick Pidgeon

Geoengineering messing with nature says public

Aerosol tests in the upper atmosphere as an idea for reducing global warming raises significant public concern shows research led by Professor Nick Pidgeon of the School of Psychology and the Tyndall Centre at Cardiff University.

In further research carried-out in 2012 on public perceptions of geoengineering, messing with nature is a common theme. Our findings suggest that messing with nature through geoengineering is likely to be met with a chorus of contestation says Dr Adam Corner from Cardiff University and the Tyndall Centre.

ADAM CORNER

The public reluctantly support research into geoengineering but is concerned that it is messing with nature show studies from Tyndall Cardiff
i Further information
Professor Nick Pidgeon is Professor of Environmental Psychology and Director of the Understanding Risk Research Group within the School of Psychology at Cardiff University. Dr Adam Corner researches public engagement with climate change and writes a Guardian blog column Deliberating stratospheric aerosols for climate engineering and the SPICE project is published in the May 2013 issue of Nature Climate Change Messing with nature: Exploring public perceptions of geoengineering in the UK was published in the July 2013 edition of http://alturl.com/d9scd

Credit: Alan Copson/Robert Harding

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MANCHESTER

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Overcoming low carbon controversies

Casting local people who oppose lowcarbon energy as selfish or irrational and using the label NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard) unhelpfully prevents understanding of the complexities of lowCarly McLachlan

Low-carbon energy controversies draws together Tyndall Manchesters ten years of insights into public engagement through studying a range of renewable energy technologies from wind turbines to capture and storage. The key issues for low-carbon controversies are perceptions of trust, the quality of consultation and engagement, attachment to place, perceptions of risk, and whether it is fuelled or dampened by the stance of the local press. Controversies are often teeming with facts and figures and knowledge claims, presented by proponents and opponents to support their positions. The opportunity to engage with experts has a fundamental impact to how claims are produced and interpreted.

carbon controversies says a new book from Tyndall Centre Manchester. Dr Carly McLachlan, Co-Editor of the book from Manchester University and the Tyndall Centre says, public opposition is seen as a major barrier to developing a low-carbon UK. Our aim with this book is to provide an overview of how controversies can lead to opposition and how they can be avoided to benefit local residents, stakeholders, developers and policy makers.

Fellow Co-Editor Dr Sarah Mander of Manchester University and the Tyndall Centre says Senior Environment and Energy Ministers from the three main UK political parties have in the past few years caricatured local opposition to wind farms as socially unacceptable, faultfinders and curmudgeons, and the need for developers to bribe local people. A low carbon pathway requires a more sophisticated understanding of how and why low carbon controversies arise.

Low-carbon energy controversies draws together Tyndall Manchesters ten years of studying public engagement with renewable energy
i Further information
Carly McLachlan is Associate Director of Tyndall Manchester and a Lecturer in the School of Mechanical Aerospace and Civil Engineering. Sarah Mander is a Research Fellow at Tyndall Centre Manchester. Low-Carbon Energy Controversies is published by Routledge in 2013 and edited by Thomas Roberts, Paul Upham, Sarah Mander, Carly McLachlan, Philip Boucher, Clair Gough, Dana Abi Ghanem www.tyndall.ac.uk/communication/ news-archive/2013/low-carbon-energycontroversies

Credit: Ashley Cooper/Robert Harding

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UEA

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Credit: Ashley Cooper/Robert Harding

Government action determines householders attitude

Governmental action in the aftermath of extreme weather can affect how residents are willing to protect their own homes and themselves in future, shows a study of the aftermath of the 2009 flooding of Galway in the West of Ireland and Cumbria in the North East of England. When people feel that the Government response fell short of their expectations, a feeling of helplessness meant an unwillingness to prevent future flooding.
tara quinn

Government action was one of the main determinants of peoples response to the floods. In Cumbria, three quarters of respondents agreed that their community had received prompt help, while in Galway it was less than half. Residents in Galway were significantly more likely to believe that their property would be flooded again. Cumbrians believed they had more personal responsibility to protect their homes in the future.

i Further information
Researchers from the University of East Anglia, University of Exeter and National University of Ireland Maynooth, surveyed 356 residents in Galway and Cumbria eight months after the flooding. Changing social contracts in climate change adaptation by Adger, W. N., Quinn, T., Lorenzoni, I., Murphy, C. and Sweeney, J, is published in Nature Climate Change, April 2013. Tara Quinn at the Tyndall Centre and the University of East Anglia PhD Thesis is Relationship with place and adaptation to flood risk.

communities and individuals respond, giving an insight into how society could evolve to cope with more extreme weather. Tara Quinn, a PhD researcher at the Tyndall Centre and the University of East Anglia says Householders are concerned with issues of fairness and equity, and if the government response is judged to be inadequate then in extreme cases this may lead to feelings of helplessness and ultimately inaction in the face of future flood risk. Understanding how the social contract is negotiated after a flood event offers insight into how adaptation to climate change could be managed in a way that encourages more efficient and fairer cooperation between citizens and state.

The research, published in the journal Nature Climate Change, is the first study to track floods in two countries and how

Tyndall researchers are showing how peoples attitudes and behaviours could evolve to cope with more extreme weather

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OXFORD Southampton

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Dont delay adaptation decisions

Uncertainty about how much the climate is changing is not a reason to delay preparing for the impacts, wrote Professor Jim Hall of the Environmental Change Institute and the Tyndall Centre at the University
JIM HALL

by balancing the risk of climate change against the cost of adaptation. First they describe a cost-benefit analysis where the cost of the adaptation has to be less than the benefit of risk reduction. Alternatively, decision makers can seek the most cost-effective way of maintaining a tolerable level of risk. This second approach is easier for policymakers to understand, they write, but the difficulty is that thresholds of tolerable risk from climate change are not well defined. The Thames Estuary Gateway is the only place in the UK where a level of protection against flooding is defined in law equivalent to a 1:1000 year water level in 2030. The authors conclude that

adaptation decisions need exploration across a variety of different interpretations of risk, rather than there being a single answer. Like all complex problems, several perspectives are needed and any single answer would misrepresent the uncertainty, but let us not let paralysis by analysis be an obstacle to action on adaptation, said Professor Hall. Adaptation decisions have further benefits. The tenfold increase in the Netherlands standard of flood protection sent a message that they will be open to global business in the future, come what may, says co-author Professor Robert Nicholls from the Tyndall Centre at the University of Southampton.

of Oxford, in the journal Nature Climate Change. Difficult adaptation decisions are being taken now, and harder choices need to be made in the future, he wrote with his co-authors from across the Tyndall Centre partnership. Jim Hall and his colleagues describe two ways of assessing how much adaptation to climate change is enough,

Paralysis by analysis should not delay decisions on coastal and flood protection

i Further information
Professor Jim Hall is Director of the Environmental Change Institute at the University of Oxford and Professor of Climate and Environmental Risks. Professor Robert Nicholls is Professor of Coastal Engineering at the University of Southampton Proportionate adaptation is published in the December 2012 issue of Nature Climate Change. www.nature/nclimate

Credit: Sophie Day/Tyndall Centre

Fudan University Shanghai

Contact: Mr Asher Minns, Tyndall Centre HQ, University of East Anglia, Norwich, NR4 7TJ, UK T: +44 (0)1603 593900 E: tyndall@uea.ac.uk

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