Climate change adaptation

Incorporate flexibility to deal with changing risks. Adaptation efforts must incorporate sufficient flexibility to deal with changing climate risks over time. The most appropriate responses will differ, depending on the scale on which they operate – from conurbation, to neighbourhoods, to building scales.

Several large scale monitoring activities

The action plan concentrates on several large scale monitoring activities, risk assessments and mapping to facilitate long-term planning and management of ground condition risks. A better basis is a prerequisite for assessing and incorporating both current and likely future climatic risks to ground conditions into development plans.

It is vital to ensure that development does not constrain our ability to deal with land stability risks, in the future. If well designed and integrated, strategies for management of ground conditions, such as vegetated slopes and managed realignment, can provide amenity by enhancing the quality of public places. 

Understand existing vulnerabilities to climate and identify critical thresholds. The imperative for adaptation is greatest in areas that are already vulnerable to climate risks. The Swedish coastal communities and infrastructure will be will be very vulnerable to sea level rise.

It can lead to large claims costs and parts of the Swedish cultural heritage being lost, unless climate change adaptation measures are implemented. Understanding how sea level rise will affect an area and identifying the critical thresholds – such as when ground conditions become unsuitable for developments – can help determine when and what adaptation actions to undertake.

The action plan suggests that concerned authorities, together with the insurance industry, are consolidating to increase knowledge on how the changing conditions should be managed, to minimize vulnerabilities and possible claim costs.

Future sea levels

Identify key climate change risks for ground conditions using the latest climate change scenarios. Knowledge about climate change effects on ground conditions and geo-constructions is still, to a large extent, to be developed.

The action plan points to the need for more knowledge of, for example, long-term ground constructability in the changing climate and how coastal management is to be developed to handle the rising sea level, together with increasing shore erosion.

The latest climate change scenarios for Sweden are provided by the Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute (SMHI). Before summer of this year, new data will be provided by SMHI on future sea levels along Swedish coastal areas – this information will be essential for future risk management and relocation plans.

It has become very clear, while developing the action plan, that there is a strong demand by the stakeholders involved in land and ground construction, for a new complementary basis and guidelines on the effects of climate change on ground conditions. More research and development is needed on changing ground and geo-construction conditions, models for risk analysis and practical guidance on how existing and new developments can be adapted.

Sweden is the only Member State in the European Union that is still lacking a national strategy and action plan for climate change adaptation. However, there is a well-developed structure of regional action plans, as well as about 10 sectorial action plans, at the national level.

Streemline planning

The design of the action plan, for managing ground conditions in a changing climate, is underpinned by SGI's instruction, issued by the government, to be proactive and maintain a coordinating role in its field, to identify the levels of knowledge and disseminate new knowledge, to streamline the planning and construction process.

Dialogues have been implemented, in various meeting forms, with about 70 organizations, mainly from the public administration, but also with representatives of industry and academia. A total of 200 stakeholders gave their views on what needs to be done to achieve ground constructions adapted to a changing climate and how SGI can be supportive, in that effort.

The feedback from the outside world, via close to 90 consultation responses on the action plan before it was adopted, showed a positive engagement – both to SGI's initiative for developing an action plan for adaptation of land and ground condition management, and to the overall approach.