Adapting to a Changing Climate
Changes to our climate have become more prominent and are beginning to influence and alter the way that agriculture operates in Scotland. To ensure your business stays resilient and sustainable it will be necessary to adapt systems and adopt new approaches. This page will give you an overview of what you can expect, and provide some next steps to ensure your business stays healthy.
Climate Change by the Numbers
- Scotland’s 10 warmest years on record have all occurred since 1997
- The average temperature between 2014-2023 has increased by 1.020C
- 2022 was the warmest year on record (Adaptation Scotland)
- Annual average rainfall has increased by 10%
- Winters are 29% wetter (Adaptation Scotland)
- Winter storms are at least 40% more likely (Met Office)
What This Means For Agriculture
In 2018, the Met Office Hadley Centre released Climate Projections for the UK. These provided up-to-date information about what changes we can expect to see in Scotland’s climate, both in the shorter and longer term. The climate projections data suggests we can expect the following trends:
- Summers will be hotter and drier
- Winters will be milder and wetter
- Weather extremes will be more frequent and more intense
Put simply, the changes we are experiencing at the moment are projected to increase and intensify.
Business performance and wider food security issues are all considerations if adaptations are not made. Some of the most obvious risks include:
- Impact on soil quality
- Increase in pests and diseases
- Damage to buildings and infrastructure
- Compromised water availability and quality
- Damage to the health of the natural environment
- Increased drought and/or flooding
What You Can Do To Improve Your Resilience
All businesses will need to look at adaptation options. This is both in the short term, looking at current changes affecting the business now, and taking into account longer term impacts. A field flooding one in ten years you can perhaps manage, but what if it flooded every other year?
Adaptation already plays a key part in the daily routines of farming businesses; farmers have always had to ‘work with the weather’. Many businesses are already putting in ‘adaptation measures’ without recognising them as such, often in response to an incident or as part of their routine business. Examples of an adaptation measure could be constructing an irrigation lagoon, providing a source of water in times of water scarcity, or fitting a section of lay-flat fence in an area experiencing more frequent flooding.
There is no one size fits all - location, topography and crop, soil and livestock type will all influence the adaptation methods that will benefit your business. If you’re not sure where to start, consider doing a SWOT analysis of your farm. This stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. It may help you to highlight threats from climate change impacts.
- Warmer summers and milder winters may increase agricultural productivity in areas of Scotland.
- However, more variable and extreme weather and the spread of pests and diseases will limit potential.
- Rainfall patterns and increased temperatures will affect the quality of our soil.
- Climate changes will create conditions for new non -native pests, diseases and plant species to thrive.
- Current pest, disease and invasive plant cases may increase in prevalence too.
- Change in rainfall patterns may increase the competition for water between different users.
- Summer droughts are predicted to become more frequent and severe.
- More heavy downpours increase the flood risk, impacting infrastructure, animals and farmland.
Doing a SWOT analysis is one way that you can identify your businesses Strengths Weaknesses Opportunities and Threats from climate change impacts. Once these have been identified suitable adaptation methods that play to your strengths, use opportunities, reduce weaknesses and counter threats can be developed.
| Strengths | Weaknesses |
|---|---|
| What do you already do well? | What assets and resources are you missing or need more of? |
| What assets and resources do you have? | What are your main disadvantages? |
| What do you do that no one else does? | What limits the growth of your business? |
| What sustainability, adaptation and mitigations measures do you have in place? | What impacts are you already experiencing? |
| Opportunities | Threats |
| What areas of your business could benefit from climate change? | What are the main environmental risks? |
| Are there new markets you could access? | How will customer attitudes change? |
| Can you develop new products or services? | What new or proposed regulations are coming in? |
| Is now the time to diversify the business? | Is the market undergoing any changes? |
Further Information
To learn more about climate adaptation techniques for livestock, crops and soils, as well as links to further resources that can support your farms adaptation, see the pages below.
Adaptation Scotland
Adaptation Scotland
Scottish Government funded programme that provides advice and support to help Scottish businesses and communities be prepared and resilient to the effects of climate change.
European Environment Agency (EEA) – Climate-ADAPT
Partnership between European Commission and European Environmental Agency (EEA). Developed to support Europe in adapting to climate change. Offers information on adaptation option, case studies, guidance information, statistics, publications etc.
Scottish National Adaptation Plan 2024 - 2029
Scottish Governments five-year programme to prepare the country for the challenges of climate change. Outlines Scotland’s Adaptation goals and progress to meeting them.
Met Office UK Climate Change Projections
The UK Climate Projections (UKCP) is a set of tools and data that shows you how the UK climate may change in the future.
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