Climate Change Impacts and Spatial Planning: Decision Support Guidance

Focusing on North West Europe, ESPACE project looks at how we manage our water resources and plan for a future with a changing climate. As part of the project, and in association with the Environment Agency, Halcrow has prepared this decision support guidance document as the final deliverable associated with Key Action 4. Key action 4 aims to develop and explore the potential of 'Decision Testing Trees’ (or decision pathways) as a tool to assist spatial planners with local decision-making and implementation of adaptation strategies. This guidance supports the following three of the 14 important recommendations that were made at the end of phase 1 of the ESPACE project:

• Look beyond the lifetime of your plan, understanding your climate risks (ESPACE recommendation 2)
• Combine change and risk management approaches for integrating adaptation into spatial planning (ESPACE recommendation 3)
• Assess the level of climate adaptation provided by the spatial plan as a whole (ESPACE recommendation 9)