September 2019 Document Control sheet Revision Date Description Amended by 1 22/05/19 Original Celine Greaney 2 30/05/19 Minor editing Celine Greaney 3 04/06/19 Minor editing Celine Greaney 4 13/08/19 Post Public Consultation Celine Greaney 5 19/09/19 Updated Jim Grogan 6 23/09/19 Adopted Celine Greaney 2 Contents Foreword .................................................................................................................................... 6 Chapter 1 .................................................................................................................................... 9 Introduction & Background ....................................................................................................... 9 1.1 Introduction: ............................................................................................................... 9 1.2 Purpose of this strategy: ............................................................................................. 9 1.2.1 Relationship with other key climate related plans/strategies................................ 10 1.3 The Challenge of Climate Change ............................................................................. 10 1.4 The Challenge for Ireland .......................................................................................... 11 1.5 What is Climate Adaptation? .................................................................................... 12 1.6 Adaptation and Mitigation ........................................................................................ 13 1.6.1 Energy Reduction Targets .................................................................................. 13 1.6.2 Roscommon County Council Mitigation Activities ............................................ 13 1.7 Adaptation Policy Context ......................................................................................... 17 1.7.1 International Context ......................................................................................... 17 1.7.2 EU Context ......................................................................................................... 17 1.7.3 National Context ................................................................................................ 17 1.7.4 Sustainability Development Goals: .................................................................... 18 1.8 Climate Action Plan 2019 – To tackle Climate Breakdown ....................................... 19 1.9 Methodology ............................................................................................................. 21 2.0 Environmental Assessment: ...................................................................................... 21 Chapter 2 .................................................................................................................................. 23 The Regional and Local context ............................................................................................... 23 2.1 Roscommon in Context ............................................................................................. 23 2.2 Background to the Eastern and Midland Climate Action Regional Office ................ 23 2.3 Profile of Eastern and Midland Climate Action Region ............................................. 24 2.4 Profile of County Roscommon .................................................................................. 25 Chapter 3 .................................................................................................................................. 29 Adaptation Baseline Assessment ............................................................................................. 29 3.1 Baseline Assessment ................................................................................................. 29 3.2 Profile of climate Hazards that have affected Roscommon County Council ............ 38 3.3 Local Level vulnerabilities to the impacts of climate hazards................................... 39 3.3.1 Agricultural Activities and Landuse.................................................................... 39 3 3.4 Flood Risk Management ............................................................................................ 40 3.5 Consequences of the impacts of climate hazards and the delivery of services ....... 41 3.6 Actors relevant to the management of identified climate impacts .......................... 42 Chapter 4 .................................................................................................................................. 43 Climate Risk Identification ....................................................................................................... 43 4.1 Overview of projected climate changes and their impacts ...................................... 43 4.2 Key Operational areas Roscommon County Council ................................................ 50 4.2.1 Architectural Heritage ........................................................................................ 52 4.3 Key Vulnerabilities ..................................................................................................... 52 4.3.1 Non climatic factors ........................................................................................... 58 4.4 Register of Climate risks and prioritisation ............................................................... 59 Chapter 5 .................................................................................................................................. 65 Adaptation Goals, Objectives and Actions ............................................................................... 65 Chapter 6 .................................................................................................................................. 79 Implementation, Monitoring and Evaluation .......................................................................... 79 Drafting an Adaptation Strategy ...................................................................................... 79 Explore opportunities to maximize co-benefits and consider cumulative/in-combination environmental effects ...................................................................................................... 80 Moving from a working Draft to a Plan of Action ............................................................ 80 Finalising the Draft Strategy ............................................................................................ 80 SEA/AA ............................................................................................................................. 80 Next Steps ........................................................................................................................ 81 4 Acknowledgements Roscommon County Council Climate Adaptation Team wish to thank and acknowledge the contributions of the following in the preparation of this Strategy: Staff across all Departments of Roscommon County Council Staff of Eastern and Midlands Climate Action Regional Office (CARO) Resources of Centre for Marine and Renewable Energy (MaREI) and Climate Ireland. Resources of Climate Ireland Resources of Met Éireann 5 Foreword Climate change is one of the most important issues Our Corporate Plan 2015 – 2019 aims “to ensure that we as a Council have to face and I welcome the through collaboration and the provision of strong publication of the Draft Climate Change Adaptation leadership, in partnership with the community, Strategy 2019 – 2024. The impacts of climate that County Roscommon, is an attractive, inclusive, change are increasingly being felt at local level prosperous and vibrant place to live, invest, work including the recent heatwave, storms and flooding and visit.” Climate change is the biggest global events. Having regard to the sustainable challenge that has ever faced humanity and development of County Roscommon into the requires an urgent and immediate response. All future, policy and decision makers need to be Public Bodies and Local Government in particular committed to embedding climate change into must provide leadership and be exemplars of best spatial planning, infrastructure development and practice in fighting and combating climate change. Local Authority functions and operations. We must mind and protect our environment for future generations and start undoing the damage Climate change is a global challenge but working of past generations. collaboratively we can all make a difference. I would like to thank the staff of Roscommon County This Climate Change Adaptation Strategy, which Council for their work in delivering this Strategy has been prepared in consultation with staff, will together with the staff of the Eastern and Midlands serve to guide and inform all of our actions, policies Climate Action Regional Office. I look forward to and thinking, as we prepare to urgently respond and working with my colleagues on its finalisation and adapt to the devastating effects of climate change. implementation and ensuring, in conjunction with Severe weather events will, unfortunately, be far the staff of both Roscommon County Council and more frequent. This Strategy calls for the building of the Eastern and Midlands Climate Action Regional community resilience that will require citizen Office, that the Strategy is updated to reflect latest engagement and participation to adopt and policy, technology and climate related impacts. respond to such events. Paschal Fitzmaurice I welcome the establishment