Emergency & Rescue Services
The changes in climate projected for Scotland will bring new challenges for the emergency and rescue services.
Fire and rescue, health and police services provide an essential front line response during emergencies.
Changes in climate such as an increase in the number and severity of extreme weather events will have significant impacts for the emergency and rescue services. Alasdair Currie, Station Manager for Central Scotland Fire and Rescue Serivce, describes some of the ways that his service has been affected in the film below.
Key Impacts
In many cases the emergency and rescue sector will be directly impacted by changes in climate, for example:
- A general increase in the number and frequency of extreme weather events will increase demand for support placing increased pressure on existing staff and equipment resources;
- Changes in climate may impact the suitability of existing buildings and equipment;
- Increased rainfall intensity, resulting in impacts such as flooding and landslides, will increase the demand for the services provided by the emergency and rescue sector;
- Increased use of summer recreation and leisure facilities may increase demand on rescue services, for example favourable weather conditions will increase the number of people using lochs and rivers for recreation increasing the risk of water related accidents;
- Warmer, drier summers will increase the risk of grassland and forest fire;
- Favourable summer weather conditions are likely to increase attendance at organised events, while this will bring economic and social benefits it will also result in an increased demand for support from the emergency response sector;
- An increase in wildlife crime may occur due to the increasing value of endangered or protected species which are now more at risk due to climate change.
In addition to a wide range of direct impacts, such as those listed above, the emergency and rescue services could also be indirectly impacted by changes such as climate induced migration, tensions over water or food and disruptions of energy supplies.
What’s happening?
Scotland’s Climate Change Adaptation Framework Emergency and Rescue Services Sector Summary
An Emergency and Rescue Services sector action plan is included within Scotland’s Climate Change Adaptation Framework. The plan provides an overview of the broad range of work that will be undertaken over the coming years to strengthen resilience of the sector to the impacts of climate change.This plan will evolve and will be frequently updated.
Scottish Resilience and Strategic Coordinating Groups
In Scotland, emergencies are dealt with, at a strategic level, by Strategic Co-ordinating Groups (SCGs) to ensure a coordinated response to such events. Scotland's eight SCGs bring together the organisations involved in dealing with emergencies to prepare for, and respond to, all kinds of emergencies. These multi-agency groups are based on police force areas and are chaired by police chief constables and local authority chief executives. They have robust plans in place to respond to all kinds of events.
Scottish Resilience is part of the Scottish Government comprising civil servants and professionals from the blue-light services, local government and health sector partners. It works with SCGs and frontline agencies
Scottish Government and Scottish responder agencies base their activities for emergency preparation and response on the principles of Integrated Emergency Management (IEM) – details of these principles are provided in the Scottish Government guidance for
Floodline Warnings Direct
The Scottish Environment Protection Agency's Floodline Direct Warning Service proides advance flood warning messages. This service sends free messages to registered landlines and mobiles, about flooding in areas covered by their Flood Warning Schemes. It guides members of the public to the Floodline recorded telephone service or the website for more detailed information.