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Authors

  • William Davies, Ricardo
  • Clémence Decherf, Ricardo
  • Richard J. Smithers, Ricardo

Published

25 September 2024

Contact

Anne Marte Bergseng
Programme Manager
annemarte.bergseng@ed.ac.uk
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Monitoring outcomes of the third Scottish National Adaptation Plan

Research completed in August 2024

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.7488/era/4836

Executive summary

Aims

This report presents indicators for monitoring the four domestic outcomes of the third Scottish National Adaptation Plan (SNAP3). These outcomes are summarised as:

  • Nature Connects
  • Communities
  • Public Services and Infrastructure
  • Economy, Business and Industry

It establishes a baseline prior to the implementation of SNAP3 for monitoring and determining progress at the end of the Plan’s five-year period.

The report addresses the challenges of developing indicators for a national adaptation plan by adopting an approach that balances robustness and practicality, considering available resources and data. We have developed a set of indicators for each outcome, assessing their relevance and feasibility for monitoring, through desk-based review and stakeholder engagement. The assessment has been grounded in the practical reality of what data is available rather than theoretically ideal indicators.

Findings

The indicators proposed for each of SNAP3’s outcomes are listed below. For each indicator, there was sufficient data available to allow for a pre-SNAP3 baseline to be established and then reported against after a five-year period.

  • Nature Connects – outcome indicators
  • Habitat Connectivity Index​ 
  • Proportion of surface water bodies classified in high and good condition
  • Proportion of Scotland’s protected sites in favourable condition
  • Proportion of soft shorelines affected by coastal erosion
  • Extent of green-blue land cover in urban areas 
  • Proportion of adults who live within a five-minute walk of their nearest green or blue space

These six indicators cover elements of ecological connectivity, ecosystem health, and nature-based solutions (NbS) for climate adaptation. A marine ecosystem indicator could not be included due to insufficient data availability.

  • Communities – outcome indicators
  • Level of community awareness around climate change
  • Level of community climate action
  • Progress of actions in local flood risk management plans
  • Level of community wellbeing

The four indicators cover elements of community resilience, wellbeing, and climate action. It was particularly challenging to capture the complexity of health and equity in relation to climate adaptation with only a few high-level indicators. The onus was placed on monitoring levels of community action in creating resilient, healthy, and equitable places.

  • Public Services and Infrastructure – outcome indicators
  • Level of collaboration across public services
  • Level of adaptation actions across public services

The two indicators monitor collaboration and adaptation action among public bodies. While these indicators provide high-level insights into public sector collaboration and adaptation efforts, they do not measure the effectiveness or inclusiveness of these actions, which would require numerous sector-specific indicators that would be onerous to monitor.

  • Economy, Business and Industry – outcome indicators
  • Proportion of businesses monitoring climate-related risks
  • Proportion of businesses taking action to adapt to the effects of climate change
  • Number of green jobs
  • Uptake of grants for agriculture storage reservoirs and off-season storage lagoons​

The five indicators cover elements of business preparedness, adaptation actions, and economic opportunities related to climate change. These indicators provide an overview of Scotland’s economic adaptation to climate change. However, they do not cover investment in climate adaptation initiatives or economic resilience to climate-related hazards, as there were insufficient available data.

Recommendations

Key recommendations for the outcome indicators following this project include:

  • Consistent application of indicators. The indicator set for SNAP3 should be finalised as soon as possible and consistently applied to enable meaningful and coherent monitoring over the Plan’s five-year period. Any changes made to individual indicators or the data that underpin them may compromise the ability to track progress consistently relative to the baseline.
  • Maintain continuity, quality and availability of data required by each indicator. It is vital to maintain the allocation of resources to the collection, maintenance and accessibility of datasets used by the indicators across all relevant Scottish Government departments.
  • Maintain flexibility regarding potential for additional indicators. New indicators may be added in the immediate term if relevant data becomes available, as may be anticipated regarding, for example an ecosystem functions indicator for Nature Connects or a green finance indicator for Economy, Business, and Industry. While the suite of indicators addresses the needs for monitoring the outcomes of SNAP3, it may be viewed as a foundation to build upon regarding monitoring of SNAP4.
  • Establish a working group to sustain the functioning of the indicators. The working group could comprise key stakeholders and data providers who could meet annually to review the functioning of the indicators and address any issues regarding their deployment, e.g., continuity and availability of data and its quality.

The findings of this report may also be of interest to anyone interested in monitoring and evaluation of climate adaptation planning more generally.

Full report in HTML coming soon

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