By systematically working with climate adaptation, the changes in the climate of the future will be easier to handle. An action plan for climate adaptation paves the way for the issue to have a greater impact, at the same time that awareness it increases the risks and vulnerabilities in the municipality.
Consideration of climate change should be an equally natural and clear part of the planning as consideration of the fact that we will have a larger population in the future – it should be another parameter to take into consideration. This is the opinion of Johan Ahlström, who is a risk engineer in the City of Västerås and one of those who started the project to prepare an action plan for climate adaptation for Västerås.
The work of preparing the action plan for climate adaptation was under way in 2014-2015, but was begun as early as 2012 in connection with a prestudy.
Began with simple measures
At the beginning of the work, inspiration was sought from the action plans from other municipalities. To find a structure to work based on, it made it easier to look at already existing action plans.
Proposals of adaptation measures and evaluation of various alternatives do not necessarily require extensive analyses – at least not as a first step. These are conclusions from the City of Västerås, which believes that if an excessively large grasp of the issue is taken from the very beginning of the work, there is a risk that investigations and analysis work will become so extensive that the plan might never be executed. Beginning with simpler measures and gradually implementing more extensive analyses may therefore be better. At the beginning, concrete activities are better since the description of the implementation and the beneficial effect can then become clearer.
Included in existing processes
Västerås’ action plan focuses on measures in the city’s own processes, administrations and companies, meaning areas where the municipality itself has the possibility to have an influence. To get the climate adaptation work into existing processes, work was done based on questions about where the issues are covered today and where they can be further reinforced.
Follow-up
To ensure that the work is done and provides the desired effects, according to Johan Ahlström, it is important to have a plan for follow-up and to appoint people responsible for the measures to be implemented. As the Västerås climate adaptation coordinator, he bears the utmost responsibility for coordinating the follow-up work and ensuring that a status check with those responsible for the measures is done annually.
Costs
In total, around SEK 200,000 was paid for the preliminary study (including consulting). The administration responsible has the task of budgeting for financing for measures. The plan states that the implementation of the action plan is dependent on when the respective committee is able to provide financing within limits and it is required that the climate adaptation plan controls decisions in connection with the setting of the municipality’s budget.
Experiences
Experiences from the work on climate adaptation in Västerås have shown that focus must be placed on public planning, effective cooling solutions and structural engineering measures. Securing water retention for agriculture is also an important issue. To be able to get started working on climate adaptation, it may be better to begin with fewer concrete measures than to try to take on many large ones.
More examples of climate adaptation
This is one of many examples of climate adaptation. There are more in the collection of ideas being built up by the Swedish National Knowledge Centre for Climate Change Adaptation at the Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute (SMHI). The collection of examples has the aim of sharing experiences and providing ideas to everyone who works with climate adaptation. Examples describe concrete measures and challenges in several subject areas. They show how different actors have worked to adapt their activities to the climate changes that are already being noticed today and those that we cannot prevent in the future.