Measuring recovery from extreme weather events

Nationally and internationally governments and stakeholders recognise that recovery from extreme weather events is not simply about rebuilding physical structures but that it needs to pursue wider social goals such as wellbeing and resilience.

This study investigates international approaches to assessing recovery from extreme weather events, the data sources underpinning them, and their applicability to Scotland. It seeks to enable a common understanding of climate resilience and the critical components in planning for local and national recovery from extreme weather.

The research reponds to a lack of national targets and data to measure recovery from extreme and/or repeated climate-related events as identified as an area of ‘high concern’ in the Climate Change Committee’s (CCC) assessments of the Scottish Climate Change Adaptation Programme (SCCAP).

Findings

We identified a number of monitoring frameworks used internationally of potential relevance to Scotland and evaluated the extent to which they would work with the approaches set out in the National Performance Framework and the SCCAP.

Based on international experience, the building blocks for developing a system for monitoring recovery from extreme weather events in Scotland are:

• Framing recovery within a set of wider social goals such as wellbeing or resilience.
• An approach that establishes the different areas or recovery that need to be considered and the role the community will play in deciding the system to be used.
• A set of indicators of recovery.
• Joined-up data across different scales (national, regional/local and community) with a focus on process and outcomes.
• Relevance of the spatial scale at which data is collected and the timing and frequency of collection to the indicator.
• Drawing on existing information.

Please note publication of this report was delayed due to the Covid19 pandemic