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| Climate
Change — Adapting to The Impacts, by Communities in Northern
Peripheral Regions |
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Demonstration adaptation project : River Enrick river restoration planning project . Location: Entire catchment of the River Enrick, and initially
focusing on the Kilmichael area and near by eroded locations to carry out at
least one small physical river restoration project within the timescale of
Clim-ATIC. The project is located in Glen Urquhart,
The existing community group GULuP (a body representing local landowners and members of the public in the Glen) will instigate discussion with a variety of stakeholders, gather evidence and plan for a catchment wide long term programme of activities to be implemented in partnership with these stakeholders. One of these activities will be implemented with the financial support (up to £25,000) of Clim-ATIC as a small demonstration project, with the objective of helping to reduce the impact of flooding from the River Enrick, particularly at Kilmichael, in line with the recommendations of the local Integrated Catchment Management Plan (ICMP). This WP4 project will demonstrate in practice the successes and failures that are encountered when a small rural community living in a region of increased threat from flooding, due to climate change, attempts to make informed adaptation decisions, enter into partnerships with stakeholders, and implement local measures. The demonstration project will highlight the significant obstacles and barriers that such a process will encounter. These barriers may include lack of knowledge, regulation and restrictions, financial constraints, attitude and mind sets and time resources. It will also highlight the opportunities and successes, so that other communities in regions in Scotland and the Northern Periphery can follow by example. The project also hopes to highlight to policy decision makers the potential for such ‘bottom up’ initiatives, and encourage policy makers to make it easier for such a community to make and implement adaptation decisions.Flash flooding of the River Enrick has been identified as having a high impact on the community of Glen Urquhart, either directly, for example through bank erosion or flood damage to buildings and infrastructure, or indirectly, for example through disruption to fish spawning areas, reduced access up the Glen or impacts on adjacent land uses. The frequency and magnitude of these floods is forecast to increase with climate change. This project aims to demonstrate the issues that arise when a community takes proactive measures to understand and react to the impacts of the predicted increase in frequency of extreme weather events (increase in amount and duration of precipitation), and attempts to instigate and implement sustainable adaptation measures that will help reduce the vulnerability of the community whilst ensuring full support of all stakeholders (community, government, NGO) and ensuring compliance with all regulations and legislations. The goal of this WP4 demonstration project will be to implement some small real adaptation measures, but the primary objective is to highlight the lessons, opportunities and barriers, and provide a case study for the Clim-ATIC project on how a community can work with stakeholders to implement bottom up adaptation. In February 2009 Richard Johnson of Mountain Environments Ltd provided GULuP with a number of possible small river restoration project opportunities that would enhance the rivers system and help to reduce the impact of future flood events. (see appendix). All of these projects will require a CARR licence and thus an application to SEPA is the next stage in the project. Therefore the project is unable to say at this stage exactly what the actual ‘construction’ element of the adaptation project will be, but a necessary and fundamental part of the learning from the project will be to assess in partnership with other stakeholders the range of adaptation options available, and develop a programme of adaptation measures. The Clim-ATIC project plans to implement a quick win-win project before the end of 2010. This ‘planning in partnership’ phase has already begun through a series of meetings and workshops to identify issues. In addition consultants have been used to provide information and advice on the river catchment to inform any decision making. It is anticipated that at least one of these options (chosen to meet the requirements of budget and timescale) will be implemented as part of this demonstration project but the full range of options will be implemented over the longer term by a range of stakeholders. The purpose of implementing one small adaptation ‘construction’ project is again so the Clim-ATIC project is able to extract lessons from this particular stage of such a project.
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Project
coordinator: UHI
Millennium Institute, Perth College, Crieff Road, Perth,
Scotland (UK), PH1 2NX
Tel: (+)44 1738
877204 •
Fax: (+)44 1738 877018 • clive.bowman@perth.uhi.ac.uk |
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