An innovative multi-hazard climate change risk assessment framework: Evidence from a place-based assessment of challenges and solutions in the UK Fens

The Fens is the UK’s largest coastal lowland, strategically important for national food production and home to a growing population and economy.  A natural floodplain and wetland, the Fens have evolved over four centuries into an engineered landscape dependent on continuous maintenance of drainage channels, flood and coastal defences, tidal barriers and extensive pumping. The region is highly vulnerable to a wide range of climate hazards, such as coastal, pluvial and fluvial flooding, drought, heatwaves and storms. Understanding how related risks may develop over time is crucial in developing a future vision for the region that responds and builds resilience to both current and future challenges.

The presentation will firstly describe the rationale and method that has underpinned the first in-depth place-based multi-hazard risk assessment for the UK Fens. This assessment builds on a flexible model framework developed via a UK project, OpenCLIM (Open CLimate Impacts Modelling framework). Spatially detailed data was extracted for the Fens region, with risk-assessment models consistently considering drought and water resources, agriculture, multiple sources of flooding, sea-level rise, terrestrial biodiversity and heat stress for the present day and with global average warming of 2 and 4°C.

The presentation will then highlight how the integrated assessment supports the analysis of climate risks through a system-lens. The assessment is innovative in highlighting how multi-hazard risks could interact across risks and sectors, identifying potential trade-offs and opportunities across sectors and ways in which this information could support strategic decision making and climate change adaptation. For example, investment in flood resilience assets may protect high grade agricultural land but if drought, water quantity and quality issues and critical short-term challenges to insect pollinators are not addressed in parallel then this investment may be short-sighted.

The analysis emphasises that the Fens cannot respond to the climate crisis with isolated measures targeted to one risk or sector. The challenges are interconnected, necessitating the same for the solutions. Furthermore, it highlights the need for urgent action with a short window of opportunity to make decisions and establish a resilient future for the Fens. One approach to doing so is to explore new visions for the future, which move away from the current status quo, such as defending some areas whilst accepting more flooding in other regions and working to exploit benefits this vision could create for other sectors/stakeholders.

Strong stakeholder engagement and co-production have been crucial in communicating key messages from the multi-hazard climate risk assessment, with the scientific evidence being used as a call to action and guiding roadmap to bring together stakeholders and decision-makers working to envision and safeguard the region’s future. Furthermore, the method and approach demonstrated for the Fens is transferable to other regions, to provide tailored regional multi-hazard climate risk and adaptation assessments that consider local contexts.