New Study on the impact of Climate Change

Climate change will affect all of us in the years to come but how this will affect habitats and biodiversity is uncertain. Environment Systems has recently been involved with a pioneering study which focuses on how climate change and socio-economic factors interact to impact habitats and biodiversity in the Brue Valley in Somerset. The results, available in a published report, will feed into the Wildlife Trusts’ ‘Living Landscape’ initiative, the European Interreg IVB NWE WAVE (Water Adaptation is Valuable for Everybody) project and Natural England’s Wetland Vision projects.

As well as producing much of the baseline mapping, such as agricultural productivity, flood plains and till boundaries Environment Systems was also responsible for dealing with the raw UKCPO9 climate change data, which is based on models produced by the Met Office. The modelled data are based on a latitude and longitude grid, with a rotated pole, returning differing values depending on the climate change scenario used and the likelihood of occurrence. These data were then used to produce a series of maps to indicate how the area would change under the different scenarios, principally focused on changes in rainfall and temperature. Taking projected rainfall as an example probabilities were investigated for both drier and wetter scenarios to indicate the impact of drought or flood on the features in the valley.

Ultimately, both the socio-economic and climate change data were used to produce ‘storylines’ and maps for each feature, cereal crops, dry grassland (for high value wildlife), lakes and ponds, swamp and fen etc. Each storyline is designed as a standalone description of current use (baseline) and the impacts that could occur as a result of climate change. The storylines then show how those impacts could be reduced through different adaptation measures. The report concludes by summarising the key findings of the study, drawing together the projected changes in areas of each feature as a result of climate change and the impacts that this could have on the socio-economic situation in the Brue Valley.

View the final report:

"Environmental and Socio-Economic Impacts of Climate Change on the Brue Valley"

The Brue Valley updated land use map