How resilient are buildings in the UK and Wales to the challenges associated with a changing climate? : Practical recommendations for risk-based adaptation

Report prepared for the Welsh Government

The aim of this year-long climate research fellowship was to answer the question “how resilient are buildings in the UK and Wales to the challenges associated with climate change projections?”, with the intention of making practical recommendations for risk-based adaptation, where deemed necessary.

The urgency and likely impact of climate change has been thoroughly assessed by scientists, the results of which are now widely published in academic literature and regularly reported in the mainstream media.

Together with projected temperature increases, extreme climate events are expected to occur more frequently, for example heavy precipitation events are likely to become more commonplace in Wales.

Current decarbonisation efforts are unlikely to hold global warming to 1.5˚c. Consequently, we need to prepare for warmer, wetter, and more extreme weather patterns.

In addition to UK and Welsh government-lead decarbonisation programmes aimed at reducing our reliance on fossil fuels within the built environment, it is now more important than ever to start to look at how we adapt our buildings to address the challenges caused by a changing climate