Climate change and coastal adaptation: using GIS and visualisation to identify issues affecting coastal communities in Aberdeen, Scotland, UK

IMCORE (Innovative Management for Europe’s Changing Coastal Resource) is an EU funded Interreg IVB project focusing on how the coastal areas of North West Europe can best be adapted to climate change. As part of this project a number of practical GIS-based workshops were designed to explore the various different ways that GIS and geovisualisation tools can be used to engage local communities in climate change issues that will have a potential impact on their physical environment, livelihood, and the local infrastructure. The paper outlines the development and hosting of a number of these workshops designed to engage the local stakeholders in identifying the impacts of climate change. The examples focus on one climate change scenario, namely that of flooding. The study areas, Aberdeen City and Stonehaven in Scotland, are both coastal settlements on the east coast of the UK. The UKCIP report identifies increased rainfall as a significant feature of Scotland’s future climate. Already there is some evidence that rainfall has increased in frequency, intensity and duration. The end result has been increased flooding incidents where areas are flooded more frequently, whilst high run-off and high tides often leads to flooding of the areas surrounding rivers and small streams, as well as low-lying coastal areas. The use of GIS and geovisualisation tools offers a more interactive and experimental environment for people to engage with local issues by providing the means to examine different information in the form of spatial datasets.