Publications

UKCIP resources include publications to download in PDF format, covering technical reports on scientific research, guidance on how to adapt your organisation to climate change, and summary documents for decision-makers who need only an overview.

A full list of our work on adaptation monitoring & evaluation can be found in the Creative adaptation section.

The reports are listed alphabetically by title (below) – you can search each page using your browser search function (usually CTRL+F, or Command+F on a Mac.

A changing climate for business

June 2010

In July 2005 UKCIP launched the UK’s first report to help business assess the impacts that climate change will have on their operations, and to begin the essential process of adapting to a changing climate. This document was updated in June 2010, and is available to download below.

ARCC annual reports

Adaptation and Resilience in a Changing Climate (ARCC) brings together research projects involving existing buildings and infrastructure, including transport and water resource systems in the urban environment. It is a development of Building Knowledge for a Changing Climate (BKCC) and Sustaining Knowledge for a Changing Climate (SKCC). The ARCC Network was established to help networking between researchers and stakeholders.

AdaptME – Adaptation monitoring & evaluation

September 2011

Organisations who have undertaken adaptation activities now face the challenge of evaluating what worked, what didn’t, how and why. This toolkit will help you to think through an evaluation of your adaptation activities, and equip you to design a robust evaluation.

AdOpt (Identifying adaptation options)

April 2007

Guidance on the identification and selection of adaptation options for use in responding to climate risks.

Attributes of well-adapting organisations

July 2011

A short study which describes the characteristics of organisations that are recognised as adapting well to climate change

Beating the heat: Keeping UK buildings cool in a warming climate

September 2005

Beating the Heat examines climate change impacts by region, building type, form and fabric, and looks at how designers will need to adapt their understanding of building performance to provide thermal comfort in the future, considering both traditional ‘passive’ and mechanical cooling measures.

Climate adaptation: Risk, uncertainty & decision-making

May 2003

Climate adaptation: risk, uncertainty and decision-making provides a step-by-step decision-making framework to help planners, businesses and government assess the risk posed by climate change, and work out how best to respond.

Costing the impacts of climate change in the UK: Implementation guidelines

June 2004

Costing the impacts of climate change in the UK helps organisations prepare for climate change. As well as introducing a method for valuing the climate change impacts, it also shows how to compare these to the costs of adaptation, so that organisations can work out how much they will need to spend on adapting to climate change.

ECCA 2017: Learning from failures in communication

October 2017

Communication in this field is not a ‘cookie cutter’ exercise – it is complex and context specific and requires planning and expertise to be effective. It is also not always a comfortable process.

This workshop session was held as part of the European Climate Change Adaptation conference held in Glasgow on 5–8 June 2017. The objective was to identify and discuss experiences of where climate change communication has not worked.

Engaging users in the development and delivery of climate projections: The UKCIP experience of UKCP09

May 2012

This paper examines how UKCIP engaged users in the development of the UK Climate Projections (UKCP09), identifying the successes of the approach as well as an appraisal of lessons learned.

Gardening in the global greenhouse – the impacts of climate change on gardens

November 2002

A scoping study looking at the impacts of climate change on UK gardens (both domestic and heritage gardens) and on the industry serving the gardening community.

Lessons from coordinating a knowledge exchange network

June 2016

We explored the challenges associated with knowledge exchange and the lessons learnt through our management of the ARCC network. This report draws together evidence on what works, with contributions from stakeholders and researchers.

LCLIP – A local climate impacts profile

September 2009

LCLIP: is it a changing climate or changing weather events to which local councils must adapt?

Making progress: UKCIP and adaptation in the UK

September 2011

Making progress reviews the work of UKCIP since 2005, looking at its successes and offering insights to what has been learned. It also marks the end of a 14-year relationship with Defra as UKCIP’s major funding partner. The report describes and makes sense of transitions in the UK’s adaptation landscape, and provides a valuable guide for anyone new to adaptation.

Managing adaptation

January 2011

A guidance note that examines key issues to consider when making the transition from awareness to action.

Measuring progress: Preparing for climate change through UKCIP

June 2005

UKCIP’s Measuring progress integrates findings from our studies and so develops a national picture of the impacts of climate change and emerging adaptation options. The aim is to provide information for decision makers who want to know how climate change will affect them and what they can do to prepare for it.

Monitoring and evaluation for climate change adaptation: A synthesis of tools, frameworks and approaches

Second edition, May 2014

This report from SEA Change and UKCIP reviews the current major monitoring and evaluation frameworks, identifying key strengths, gaps, and the most suitable audiences for each resource. It highlights the opportunities and challenges facing the implementation of climate change adaptation programmes, enabling professionals and practitioners to identify which materials will help them most.

First edition: October 2013

Monitoring and evaluation guidance notes

January 2014

In a series of Guidance notes, SEA Change and UKCIP examine the complexities of monitoring and evaluation of climate adaptation programmes. Three short reports look at the specific challenges of M&E for climate change adaptation, how to select indicators, and examine how the Theory of Change approach works in this context.

Monitoring and evaluation reviews

May 2014

A series of reviews distilling findings from evaluations of climate change M&E. The first paper shares lessons learned in the design, monitoring, and evaluation of a small number of agriculture and food security programmes across Asia.

Paper 2 identifies trends in how selected international agencies have approached the M&E components of climate change adaptation programmes.

The third paper highlights lessons learned from the evaluation of a group of climate change adaptation programmes in high-risk coastal areas of Asia and the Pacific.

Objective setting for climate change adaptation policy

December 2005

This Defra-commissioned report sets out a method for setting adaptation policy, to be used to develop adaptation policy objectives for government departments. It includes example targets and indicators in six priority sectors (water resources, flood and coastal risk management, transport, tourism, agriculture and energy).

Socio-economic scenarios for climate change impact assessment: A guide to their use in the UK

February 2001

The UKCIP socio-economic scenarios are specifically designed to work with climate scenarios and to provide the type of detail likely to be of use for regional and sectoral studies – technical report.

Transformational adaptation – what it is, why it matters and what is needed

September 2015

We are interested in discovering if transformational adaptation is a useful concept and if there is collaborative work we can do to develop it further.

Through a review of recent literature, and discussions from a workshop for practitioners and academics, we examine the concept of transformation, how it might be applied and priorities for future research and practice.

UKCP09: The climate of the United Kingdom and recent trends

Revised January 2009

This was the first in a series of reports under the umbrella of the UK Climate Projections (UKCP09). It is useful to understand the risks that current climate already poses to individuals, landscapes, organisations and the economy, before moving on to explore future climate risks. This report provides information to support this first step, stimulating better understanding of how the UK’s climate affects our lives.