Climate Ready Localities

Project Complete
Date added: 17/08/2022

During the summer of 2020 Adaptation Scotland identified two localities - Loch Ken in Dumfries and Galloway and Marr in Aberdeenshire - where local partners demonstrated a real appetite to work with us to increase resilience in the face of climate change.

Expressions of interest were received from potential partners, and the selection process included considerations of likely impact, legacy/potential for ongoing activity, local ownership and the ability of the work to deliver multiple benefits.

Our intentions for the localities that were selected were to:

  • Increase climate readiness and resilience for people in the locality;
  • Ensure synergies and alignment of adaptation with other policies and practice to enhance the impact of the project;
  • Generate learning and resources that can be used to inform climate ready planning and action at other localities.

These intentions were taken as a starting point of both collaborations, and evolved as we worked with local partners between 2020 and 2022, in line with their interests and priorities.

Strathdon, Aberdeenshire

In Strathdon, in the Marr area of Aberdeenshire, we worked with Climate Ready Aberdeenshire, a cross-sector regional initiative that is developing Aberdeenshire’s climate change adaptation strategy. Building on the Community Resilience to Climate Change Workshops held in the area in 2019 by Climate Ready Aberdeenshire, and on the current research on existing adaptation actions, we worked with Aberdeenshire Council, Strathdon Community Development Trust, and more recently, the Marr Area Partnership to help:

  • Better understand what ‘climate ready’ might mean for the locality, and who needs to be involved
  • Engage community members and strengthen understanding of the links between climate resilience and other local priorities such as housing, transport and land ownership
  • Pilot the new Place Standard Tool with a Climate Lens to map local risks and vulnerabilities
  • Provide support and advice on resilience after Storm Arwen (Dec 2021)

Loch Ken, Dumfries and Galloway

In Loch Ken we worked with the Loch Ken Trust, a charitable organisation established to put the community at the heart of decision making that affects them. In close cooperation with other local partners – the Galloway Glens Landscape Partnership, Galloway and Southern Ayrshire Biosphere, and Dumfries and Galloway Council – the Climate Ready Ken initiative was born. Since then, we have helped local partners:

  • Raise awareness and co-create local climate change knowledge using a series of tools and resources for exploring and gathering local evidence of climate impacts
  • Engage with local councillors and the media
  • Build new relationships, particularly with the farming community
  • Mainstream climate change adaptation into existing initiatives and plan

Read our case study about Climate Ready Ken: what happens when a Community Development Trust initiates local efforts on climate resilience

Find out more about the adaptation tools and resources we have used to support our work in Localities