1www.ukcip-arcc.org.uk

ACN Mid-Term Conference – Adapting our Built Environment - ARCC Contributions and Challenges

St. Catherine’s College, Oxford6 / 7 April 2011

You are invited to this conference to engage with current research on adaptation and resilience to climate change in the UK built environment and its infrastructure and to explore the policy implications. Within the Adaptation and Resilience to a Changing Climate (ARCC) Coordination Network, a wide range of research projects focus on the potential effects of climate change on buildings, the urban environment and transport and water resources systems at the local, city and national scales. The overall aim of the research, which was established under the 10-year Living With Environmental Change (LWEC) programme, is to help formulate adaptation options to make systems more resilient to environmental change in a socially acceptable and environmentally advantageous way.

The focus of the conference will be on cross-sectoral themes such as overheating, local communities and decision support tools and on case studies as a means of bringing together and further exploring the research completed, underway and outstanding.

All researchers, stakeholders, decision makers and other end users with an interest in the adaptation and resilience to a changing climate of the UK built environment and its infrastructure are very welcome to register.

Further information and details of registration will be made available on the ACN website http://www.ukcip-arcc.org.uk/ . There is no charge for this event and all accommodation and meals will be provided.

FORTHCOMING MEETINGS

22 November 2010UKCIP are holding a UKCP09 Users Community Meeting in Birmingham. The purpose of the meeting is:

• To provide information about new developments

• To facilitate networking amongst users

• To share examples of good practice

• To provide a forum for users

If you would like to attend please email anna.steynor@ukcip.org.uk

30 November 2010 The Use of Probabilistic Information in Building Design, ACN Coordination meeting, University of Exeter

1 December 2010ACN Overheating Seminar: London (see page 2)

12 January 2011 ARCADIA: Stakeholder Advisory Group, London

6 & 7 April 2011: Adapting our Built Environment - ARCC Contributions and Challenges, ACN Mid-term Conference, University of Oxford

acn newsletter

Welcome to the fourth edition of the Adaptation and

Resilience to a Changing Climate (ARCC) Coordination

Network (ACN) newsletter. These newsletters are

published approximately every 4 months to provide

updates on progress of the Network, to promote

forthcoming activities within the ACN, and to provide

information of interest to all those engaged in the

projects.

OCTOBER 2010 • Issue 4

2www.ukcip-arcc.org.uk

new acn project

ACN OVERHEATING SEMINAR

1 DECEMBER 2010, LONDON

Overheating in buildings, communities and cities is becoming an increasing problem with rising summer temperatures. This ACN meeting is being held to draw together the latest research and its implications on overheating to respond to specific policy questions. The meeting aims:

• to identify key outputs and their implications arising from ACN and other related research projects which can help inform decision and policy making processes;

• to provide an opportunity for researchers to focus on-going work more closely to respond to specific policy requirements;

• to provide a framework for a themed paper that will address key policy questions to be published early in 2011.

Defra, CLG and other key professional bodies will be involved in scoping the policy questions prior to the meeting. All ACN projects and other related projects with an interest in overheating will be invited to contribute.

New ARCC Coordination Network project – UK Infrastructure Transition Research Consortium

A new five-year EPSRC/RCUK research project, the UK Infrastructure Transition Research Consortium (UK ITRC), will join the ARCC Coordination Network early in 2011. This work will develop and demonstrate a new generation of systems simulation models and methods to inform analysis, planning and design of national infrastructure, including exploring alternative investment strategies.

UK infrastructure is acutely vulnerable to changes in the weather and other threats because of the interdependence of the five key networks – energy, transport, telecommunications, water and waste. Efficient and reliable infrastructure systems are essential to the growth and competitiveness of the UK economy and to quality of life and the environment.

This research will focus on the five networks at a national scale, developing new methods for analysing their performance, risks and interdependencies. It will provide a virtual environment to test strategies for long term investment in infrastructure, and to understand how alternative strategies perform with respect to policy constraints such as reliability and security of supply, cost, carbon emissions, and adaptability to demographic and climate change.

The research is being funded through a programme grant from the EPSRC with additional sponsorship from project partners. A large consortium of research teams is being led by Professor Jim Hall, Director of the Centre for Earth Systems Engineering Research, Newcastle University, jim.hall@ncl.ac.uk

20

07

20

08

20

09

20

10

20

11

20

12

20

13

20

14

20

15

20

16

ARCC-Water

De2RHECC

BIOPICCC

ARCADIA

FUTURENET

Low-carbon Future

DOWNPIPE

PROCLIMATION

PROMETHEUS

COPSE

CREW

SCORCHIO

LUCID

SNACC

ITRC

New project timeline

3www.ukcip-arcc.org.uk

update on recent events

ACN Joint Stakeholder and Integrated Research Forum, 27 and 28 September

Over 50 researchers and stakeholders attended this first joint meeting of the ARCC Coordination Network participants which focussed on three key areas relevant to all projects:

• Effective Approaches to Engaging Communities in Climate Change Planning. Discussions were aimed at drawing on experiences to suggest the most effective ways to disseminate complex information on climate change risks to those affected at the local level - communities, local authorities, service providers and policy makers.

• Cross-sectoral themes. Of 14 cross-cutting themes suggested by participants, the four with the widest relevance: working at the community scale, decision support tools, overheating/UHI/thermal, mitigation/adaptation, were discussed further looking at the scope, the questions being addressed and the target audience. The outcome from these discussions is likely to form the basis of themed papers and to inform further work within the ACN.

• Effective dissemination to meet stakeholder requirements and to promote further understanding of research and its implications. A key focus was agreeing the scope and content of ‘so-what documents’ to be prepared at the end of each project and aimed at understanding the outputs and implications of the research from a practitioner’s perspective.

All papers from this meeting, the project posters and stakeholder presentations are available on the ACN website

CIBSE/UKCIP PROJECT ON CLIMATE CHANGE IMPACTS AND REFURBISHING OFFICES FOR RESILIENCE

A Knowledge Transfer Partnership (KTP) between the UK Climate Impacts Programme and CIBSE is underway, looking at impacts of climate change on non domestic buildings and refurbishment options for offices in order to make them more resilient. A typical base case office model will be subjected to UKCP09 based probabilistic weather to test impacts and solutions. Evidence will be drawn from research (including from ARCC projects) into what solutions are found to have benefits in maintaining adequate comfort and limiting carbon emissions into the future.

If you would like further information on the project, or can provide evidence of construction solutions that increase resilience to climate change please contact Maria Shamash, 0208 772 3645.

ACN NEWSLETTER

If you wish to be added to the newsletter circulation list then please email: arcc@ukcip.org.uk

TSB Design for Future Climate (D4FC) 2010: Adapting Buildings

Earlier this year, the Technology Strategy Board invited proposals from design teams to develop adaptation strategies for two types of existing large building projects:

• planned low impact new buildings that are now at the design stage, and

• large non-domestic buildings that are about to be refurbished to low impact standards.

26 contracts of up to £100k each have been awarded to develop strategies for a range of projects including 7 schools, 6 offices, 4 university buildings, 3 mixed-use housing developments, 2 hospitals, 2 care homes, 1 supermarket and 1 laboratory with a combined value of £2.7m. A second round of the competition is planned for summer 2011 with a value of £2.4m.

At the initial meeting on 11 October 2010, ACN demonstrated the work of the network project portfolio. The meeting addressed the availability and appropriate use of climate data including the UKCP09 projections. Discussions are on-going. ACN projects are part of several D4FC project consortia and involved in providing such data. In particular, PROMETHEUS, which has developed probabilisitic future reference years using the output from UKCP09, will use this data in their D4FC projects, and are also willing to create custom files for other projects for free if requested. Files for 35 locations, and details of the methodology used, are already available from the project website.

www.ukcip-arcc.org.uk 4

project updates

ADAPTATION AND RESILIENCE OF THE UK ENERGY SYSTEM TO CLIMATE CHANGE

EPSRC CALL TO TENDER

The invitation from EPSRC for research proposals is now live on their website. This call seeks research proposals from multidisciplinary consortia concerned with the adaptation and resilience of energy generation and transmission systems in the context of current climate and projected changes. This is a joint call from the Research Councils UK Energy and Living with Environmental Change (LWEC) programmes in collaboration with the UK Climate Impacts Programme. Total sponsorship of £3 million will be available for research projects of a maximum duration of five years. The closing date is 16.00hrs 10th November 2010.

Progress on ACN projects

Both SNACC and DeDeRHECC have recently held stakeholder advisory group meetings to reflect on current research and advise on future activities. Thanks to Professor Katie Williams (SNACC) and Professor Alan Short (DeDeRHECC) and their teams for providing us with the following updates:

a. Design and Delivery of Robust Hospitals in a Changing Climate (DeDeRHECC)

The Design and Delivery of Robust Hospital Environments in a Changing Climate project is concerned with devising practical and economical refurbishment strategies for the vast NHS Retained Estate. The project is entering its second year of work and the research is arguably becoming ever more timely in its focus on refurbishment given the funding situation which the NHS currently faces. The sector has very real concerns about climate change, as expressed in the NHS Carbon Reduction Strategy and the Heatwave Plan, as well as concern about water supply, flooding, and the impact of a changing climate on an aging population.

The multi-disciplinary team, led by Professor Alan Short from the University of Cambridge, has spent the last year immersed in the working and performance of buildings on the sites of our four partner NHS Trusts. The literature relating to the environmental design of acute healthcare settings has been read. Definitions of ‘resilience’ in a healthcare context have been deduced, drawing on the knowledge of our expert Sounding Panel plus invited healthcare professionals in the UK and beyond. The Cambridge University Engineering Design Centre and Open University team members are applying agent-based modelling to capture the complex internal life of a hospital campus. We have acquired a summer’s worth of environmental data which reveals the performance of key spaces on the case study sites. Some became very hot in relatively benign conditions, auguring badly for the future. The resilience of the spaces will now be diagnosed and we will design costed refurbishment strategies.

The project’s impacts thus far are various. Our distinguished Sounding Panel, which includes NHS Chief Executives and Directors of Estates, provides expert advice and relays our findings to the sector. We have fielded enquiries about the work from the UK, North America and Australia. A detailed introduction to the project was published in Health Estates Journal, widely read in our target constituency. Further publications and outputs are planned, including our broadcast-quality DVD film, an accessible, engaging summary of the research.

www.ukcip-arcc.org.uk 5

TSB ANNUAL CONFERENCE, INNOVATE10

The ACN was invited to the Innovate 10 event organised by the Technology Strategy Board to showcase current research on climate change adaptation in the built environment. The stand showcased the ACN and three selected projects (ARCC-Water, LUCID and ARCADIA) which presented a variety of impacts studies at the urban scale. Representatives from the ACN and projects were on hand to answer questions; particular interest was shown by researchers, other government representatives and consultants looking to use the outputs to inform current and future projects.

Some exciting ideas on how to improve the stand for next year are already underway, including highlighting key overall messages and providing hands-on demonstrations of project outputs.

Watch this space!

project updates

b. The Suburban Neighbourhood Adaptation for a Changing Climate (SNACC) Project

The anticipated changes to our climate will have a significant impact upon the places where people live. Changes in weather severity and pattern pose a risk to housing and infrastructure and to the comfort and health of residents. The majority of people in the UK live in suburbs, so it is important to examine how existing suburban areas can be adapted to reduce the impacts.

UK suburbs are not all alike and will be affected differently according to the nature of the climate risks (i.e. flooding, heatwaves, storms), their location, the character of the housing stock (insulation, shading, etc) and the capacity of neighbourhood infrastructure (drainage, greenspaces, etc). A range of adaptation measures at household and neighbourhood scales are being compiled. Whether householders and policy stakeholders have the capacity and motivation to adopt these types of measures will determine how suburbs will be affected by climatic changes in the future.

Six case studies will be undertaken across Bristol, Oxford and Stockport in order to identify the most effective, practical and acceptable adaptation measures for UK suburbs. A matrix has been developed so the six case study sites cover: 1) each of the suburb types identified in Figure 1; 2) the threat of fluvial and pluvial flooding; and 3) a range of socio-economic characteristics and degrees of community activity around environmental issues.

Householders and policy stakeholders will be given a range of adaptation options to consider. They will then be given information about the impacts of climate change, the effectiveness of different adaptation measures, the impact of adopting such measures on house prices, and the visual impact of these measures at the street level. They will then feed back their views on which adaptation measures are most practical and acceptable to them. The SNACC project is now integrating these different components of work about adaptation in preparation for the case study fieldwork to commence in early 2011.

1. INNER HISTORIC

Up to 1910: Victorian/Edwardian terraced or semi-detached housing in inner-city locations.

2. PRE-WAR ‘GARDEN CITY’

1901-1919: Medium-large semis and detached homes with detailed facades and large gardens.

3. PUBLIC TRANSPORT

1920-30s: Medium density, homogeneous speculative suburbs, usually semis, in a closely structured urban fabric along railway lines.

4. SOCIAL HOUSING

1950-1970s: ‘Council Estates’ with a mix of house types including detached and semi-detached houses, short terraces and medium rise blocks.

5. CAR

1980s-90s: Low density, detached housing with homogenous developer-led housing, often in cul-de-sac road layouts in outer suburban locations.

6. URBAN EXTENSION

2000-present: Medium-high density developer-led housing developments with a mix of house types including town houses, detached and semi-detached houses, terraces and apartments.

Figure 1: A typology of UK suburbs