Main navigation

Adapting to climate change

This section introduces some of the basic principles and terminology used for adapting to climate change. The following schematic diagram illustrates the process of adaptation.

Source: Willows and Connell, 2003

The vertical axis can represent any critical climate variable such as temperature or rainfall. In the recent past the climate has been reasonably static but always exhibits a degree of variation. In normal circumstances we are able to cope with most of these variations as represented by the yellow area in the diagram. This is known as the coping range. Every now and again, a more extreme weather event may occur that exceeds the coping range and crosses the critical threshold leading to problems. For instance this could be a heat wave that makes it difficult to function, or produces health problems for vulnerable people, or intense rainfall that causes flooding. The area above the critical threshold represents vulnerability shown in brown in the diagram.

The right hand side of the diagram represents the future where climate change is expected to cause the current coping range to be exceeded more frequently. The objective of adaptation measures is to raise the critical threshold in order to increase the coping range and reduce vulnerability. This is represented by the blue area in the diagram. Adaptations, especially if they involve significant physical changes such as building new flood defences, are likely to take time to implement as shown on the diagram.

Ideally, adaptations should be proactive, so that they are implemented prior to any increases in the frequency, or extent, by which the critical threshold is exceeded.

In practice there are generally costs associated with raising the critical threshold and so it may be useful to consider various adaptation measures over different time periods in order to maintain a reasonable coping range as risks increase.

In some circumstance it might be appropriate to delay considering significant investment in adaptation in order to make a better informed decision. The delay time should be used to improve your knowledge - for instance by undertaking research or monitoring. However, before deciding to delay an important decision check how long it is before any critical thresholds are likely be exceeded.

Minimising the cost of adaptation

The costs of adapting to climate change can be minimised if adaptation is built in:

to the early stages of planning new developments or investments
when any premises or infrastructure are due to be refurbished or upgraded
when any plans are scheduled for review
before you are forced to act by a sudden event or mounting maintenance costs. For instance, costs of emergency repairs to infrastructure slopes are typically ten times the cost of routine maintenance.