The event was a collaboration between the Institution, Brunel University London and HR Wallingford, with IMechE members from the UK, India, and Japan taking the lead on its organisation. The three central themes were “Heat and Drought,” “Pluvial and Fluvial Flooding”, and “Rising Sea Levels and Coastal Flooding” covered each in corresponding parallel sessions. The three sessions were respectively chaired by Dr Tim Fox, Prof D Parthasarathy and Dr Carola Koenig, with Tim Fox being the overall Lead Chair of the event.
Poignantly, the meeting took place during an unprecedented September heat wave in the UK, with seven consecutive days exceeding temperatures of 30°C, whilst heavy rainfall in Thessaly, Greece, turned streams into raging torrents causing burst dams, roads and bridges being washed away as well as cars being carried into the sea. These extreme weather events really underpinned the meeting’s goal to address the urgent need to adapt our world to cope with climate change and to increase our capacity for adaptation to drive climate resilience.
The meeting covered both conference and workshop elements, Day 1 of the event being conference style presentations at IMechE’s Headquarters in Westminster, London, followed by Day 2 and 3 as highly interactive, collaborative workshops. The venue for Day 2 was the internationally renowned HR Wallingford site in Oxfordshire and Day 3 saw the workshop move to Brunel University in Uxbridge, west London. The workshop aim was to facilitate discussion on both academic and industrial research needs for filling gaps in existing knowledge on adaptation and resilience capacity building, as well as to provide a forum for exploring potential opportunities for participants to work collaboratively on research projects, publications and other outputs.
Climate change and its impact on society is one of the greatest challenges for humankind as historic steady-state conditions are rapidly changing. Therefore, the meeting’s objective was to bring relevant engineers together with scientists and other allied professions to encourage global partnerships for progressing research and deliver of solutions that encompass society, engineering and technology, economy, as well as policy.
Following the welcome by Dr Tim Fox the keynote addresses on Day 1 kicked off with setting the governmental context for the three organising countries, UK, India and Japan, and included presentations from David Hill, Director-General for Environment, Rural and Marine, Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs, UK; Dr. Susheela Devi Negi, Senior Director of the Climate Change and Clean Energy Division, Department of Science and Technology, Government of India; and Ayuko Kobayakawa, Deputy Director, Climate Change Adaptation Office, Global Environment Bureau, Ministry of the Environment Japan. The parallel sessions were opened by renowned speakers in their fields, which included Prof Mark Macklin (University of Lincoln) and Prof Robert Nicholls (University of East Anglia), and a cross-cutting theme presentation was given at the close of the day by Prof Jim Hall, University of Oxford, Member of the UK Prime Minister's Council for Science and Technology, Commissioner of the National Infrastructure Commission, as well as Vice President of the Institution of Civil Engineers. Jim addressed the topic of resilience of Britain’s national infrastructure in a changing climate, as well as sharing details of an innovative mapping project focussed on building resilience in Jamaica’s critical infrastructure.
A smaller group ‘right sized’ for effective interaction participated in the workshops on Days 2 and 3, which began by setting the context of the public and private sector research funding landscape in the UK, Japan and India. In addition, Day 2 also featured a visit of the hydrological and coastal modelling facilities at HR Wallingford as well as a workshop dinner at Brunel University.
Outcomes from the track workshops (one aligned to adaptation to heat and the other aligned to flooding) included agreement that detailed understanding of the economic, including socio-economic, value of adaptation and its effectiveness is required, which in turn, will allow for the development of required decision-making tools. It was additionally agreed that more than the mere identifying of interdependencies is needed to progress such tools, as often decision makers need to reconciliate conflicting issues when developing adaptation plans. In this context, cascading compound impacts also need to be addressed including attention to the human element as well as social vulnerability and inequity.
Conflicts between complex interdependencies were recognised and their potential for both, reinforcement, and compensation, with correlation to synergies between the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as well as trade-offs. There was also a consensus amongst the workshop participants that communication was a key challenge. In this regard, not only is there a need for improved communication in several areas (e.g. within and between professions and disciplines, and within communities etc), but also a whole different range of communication tools may be needed, which may differ regionally (e.g. using films in India). The communication of uncertainties was judged as a particular pressing key challenge. Whilst in some cases co-benefits are significant and decision making is reasonably straight forward, this can result in a challenging process in others. Listening was stressed as a central part of communication as local knowledge is key to devise appropriate and successful adaptation strategies.
The adoption of adaptive methodologies within standards (for example, ISO14090) was discussed thoroughly, which, together, with specifics of the standards, might be more effective in going forward in a timely way rather than relying on governments to regulate, particularly as the latter takes time. It was commonly acknowledged that there is currently a skills gap in adaptation and that consultancies are hiring sector specialists at a very high rate. Further, there is a need to change the mindset when it comes to adaptation, such as looking forward and planning for the next 500 years by implementing the possibility for further adaptation. Additionally, 'fluid' interdependencies approaches are needed as well as flexibility in conjunction with limited planning timescales. Finally, the investment need for large-scale living labs was stressed to allow for the investigation of multi-hazard scenarios (e.g. earthquakes and flooding). The workshop sessions ended with a dedicated consultation session organised by the UK Met Office on UKCP, the UK Climate Projections, with the objective of helping to narrow the gap between climate information provision and its use for decision making.
To summarise, this international conference-workshop format event, a first for IMechE, achieved its aims and objectives and saw tangible collaboration towards a project proposal submission take form between delegates from Japan, Kenya and the UK. As climate adaptation requires a multi-disciplinary international approach, a closer collaboration amongst the professions is essential and the Institution is committed to helping make that happen.