Adapting to climate change

A research project aimed at examining ways in which suburban neighbourhoods can adapt to cope with climate change has been launched by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC).

The £651,000 SNACC (Suburban Neighbourhood Adaptation for a Changing Climate) project is being led by the University of the West of England (UWE) alongside Oxford Brookes University, Heriot-Watt University and a number of international partners.

The project will look at ways in which the social and technological structure of neighbourhoods can be changed to mitigate climate change. Research will focus on the technical performance of these changes and how practical the actions would be to implement.

Prof Katie Williams, project leader, said: '80 per cent of people in the UK live in suburbs, so this is the environment in which the majority of our domestic lives will be affected by climate change. At the moment we are not doing anything to alter these environments to cope with the consequences of climate change. Most research so far has concentrated on issues relating to urban areas, and very little attention has been paid to how to reduce further impacts of climate change in suburban areas and also to withstand ongoing changes.