Jeremy's Blog 27th October 2023: Climate Change Risk Resilience Adaptation
This article by Jeremy Moody first appeared in the CAAV e-Briefing of 26th October 2023
It is only October and we already have our second “named” storm. Storm Babet has repeatedly battered and saturated Angus, Aberdeenshire and neighbouring counties with still more rain falling after silage bales had been washed out to sea. Flooding has gone wider, whether Framlingham, Derby, Retford, parts of the Welsh border and now the central south coast. This is the present taste of the more volatile, eccentric, extreme weather associated with climate change, with more to come.
Even if the mitigation policies of renewable energy at scale, carbon sequestration and other measures work, there is more change to come – and even more if those policies do not deliver as intended. The Environment Agency has forecast that 1.9 million dwellings will be at risk of annual flooding by 2050. The new solar farms, the new and upgraded power lines and substations, the on-farm measures to reduce emissions and the carbon dioxide pipelines are all part of keeping that number down.
Whether such floods or extended hot dry weather or Storm Arwen and its siblings, we have to prepare at business level to manage land and farming for such varied challenges. There is clearly risk and therefore risk mitigation to build resilience, once defined as the ability to “bounce back better”. We can work to protect but we must also work to adapt, looking to future proof farms, estates, houses, woods. We can also seek out new opportunities with new crops and uses in the new conditions and changing world circumstances and markets.
Flooding, perhaps the UK’s greatest climate change risk at present, gives an example of how we react. Assessing flood risk focuses attention on flood defences, mitigating identified risk, and then on flood management, including nature-based measures, reducing flow. But, as we see, new areas become risk-prone as storms become more intense and we might not be able to afford to protect everywhere, that itself driving change.
At the domestic level, Flood Re gives important support for continuity in insurance cover until 2039, increasingly promoting investment in household flood resilience measures to adapt houses to stand some flooding.
How do we future proof farms for this? Larger gutters and downpipes can protect buildings and yards. Harvesting that rainwater may aid resilience – aside from supply, softer rainwater can save on adjuvants for agro-chemicals – and keep that run-off away from slurry, field and watercourse. Ensuring suitable and sufficient insurance cover is anyway important with current construction costs.
What might be done to protect farm infrastructure, from tracks to power and fodder stores, from flood and the force of water? Are there plans for livestock welfare or to work with neighbours facing common risks? Each farm will have its own answers but taking steps now can give value for the future.
The ability to adapt to change is a basic human trait. We now have more tools than our ancestors – genetics work in New Zealand is breeding apple trees to be commercial above 40oC. But we need to use the time that we have well – both to mitigate and to adapt. Trees to shade livestock in future decades will need to have been planted in time.