Climate change - it’s in the news at the moment so it seems apt for me to be writing this blog.
Last week I facilitated a workshop at Kingsbury Outdoor Education Centre for RSPB colleagues and partners to look at Climate Change Adaptation for the Trent and Tame River Valleys. Participants included RSPB reserves, Futurescapes and Climate Change Policy staff, Nature after Minerals, Trent Rivers Trust, Environment Agency and Natural England.
The workshop was based on an approach to adaptation developed by the RSPB’s Olly Watts and involves eight steps, five of which we addressed in the workshop - finding out how the climate will change in an area, assessing the direct and indirect impacts of changes on our conservation objectives, prioritising threats and opportunities, and developing strategies and action for adaption. Olly was at the workshop – the first one he’s attended in person, so no pressure on me!
How will the climate change?
If you’ve listened to the news in the last couple of days, the summary of the projections for national weather patterns are the same for the Trent and Tame River Valleys – warmer and wetter winters, drier and hotter summers, with an increased likelihood of extreme events.
What does this mean for wildlife?
There will be winners and losers. Wildlife is vulnerable to change, especially unpredictable, extreme events. Water availability will become an issue for wetland sites, with too little at some critical periods and conversely too much at other critical periods. Drier summers will be bad news for breeding waders that need wet areas and soft ground, and extreme events like heavy downpours of rain in spring could wash out ground nests. How water is managed in the river valleys will be key to an adaptation plan.
Changing temperatures will shift the distribution ranges of some species. We are already seeing northward expansion of species’ breeding ranges, with little egrets breeding in the Trent Valley for the first confirmed time last year.
What can we do?
Be prepared by having an adaptation plan that builds resilience and plans for change for key habitats. Part of that approach is taking a landscape-scale approach to conservation – ensuring that habitats are better, bigger and part of a network.
We’ve now completed five of the eight steps for an adaptation plan. Next steps are writing up the workshop notes into a draft a plan, agreeing it with partners, and starting to implement its recommendations.
To find out more about how the RSPB is responding to climate change see http://www.rspb.org.uk/climate/
Climate change workshop © Sarah Allen