The Hub has been informed by underpinning research carried out as part of multiple projects addressing different aspects of these issues. Projects focus on developing understanding and carrying out evaluations of the health and wellbeing impacts of adaptations around the world. Topics include; community-led healthy adaptations; migration and mobility in adaptations; and rural and urban resilience interventions. The types of climate impacts and adaptations addressed through the different research projects are wide-ranging and include interventions for flood (e.g. nature-based solutions; hard flood defences; relocation), heat (e.g. wildfire prevention; built environment cooling, advice and support), and cold (e.g. built environment interventions for warm homes, advice and support).
This project developed evidence for sustainable flood risk adaptation by comprehensively incorporating health and wellbeing consequences. Flooding is a major climate risk, which causes high mortality and has multiple health impacts. Existing adaptation research often addresses singular wellbeing aspects (e.g. nature connection, mental health), failing to capture the multiple, interacting effects of climate adaptation on people's lives and wellbeing. This research therefore developed, tested, and validated new evaluative criteria through real-world interventions in Ireland, Ghana, and the UK. Download PDF
SUCCESS seeks to generate new knowledge on the evaluation of adaptations that involve migration, mobility, and immobility across South Asian countries. Researchers and action partners are co-creating a set of evaluative tools to facilitate inclusive migration as adaptation that meets goals of human well-being and broader climate-resilient development. The research focuses on populations facing planned relocation, immobile and left-behind populations as well as urban migration destinations in Bangladesh, Bhutan, and Nepal. Research sites span mountain, coastal, dryland and urban contexts to represent all major dimensions of the mobility spectrum. Download PDF
The overall objective of CLAPs is to co-create interventions and metrics that enable successful adaptation to climate change. CLAPs examines existing local climate change adaptation action in Indian cities and rapidly changing rural areas. The project analyses these actions against current development priorities to help evaluate adaptation pathways that can meet the goals of climate-resilient, migrant-friendly development. The project creates a set of generalised lessons and evaluative metrics with action partners to provide guidelines and improve policies on climate adaptation based on experiences in India. Download PDF
The project collaboratively investigates the health and wellbeing impacts of community-led actions addressing extreme weather (flood, heat, cold). Phase 1 mapped UK community responses to extreme weather, assessing their health and wellbeing implications and identifying future intervention possibilities (e.g., action plans, training, environmental changes). Phase 2 involves working closely with community partners to conduct in-depth evaluations, generating knowledge on the health and wellbeing impacts of these community-led actions from the perspectives of users and wider community members. Download PDF
Find definitions for terms that are frequently used in the Healthy Adaptations Hub.
| Terminology | Definition |
|---|---|
| Affect | People’s emotional evaluation of experiences of everyday life. Affective responses to flood interventions are important for understanding the social consequences of adaptations and how these are distributed. Affective responses are also important for galvanising support for adaptation policies because of the way people can influence how they interpret social situations and their intended and actual behaviours. |
| Affective wellbeing | People’s emotional evaluation of everyday life experiences in terms of their preferences versus reality. |
| Place making | [Definition to come] |
The Healthy Adaptations Hub showcases research from a range of projects that have been undertaken by social scientists, health economists, demographers, epidemiologists, and hydrologists across multiple universities (see Underpinning Research for details on who’s been involved).
The Hub showcases a series of resources to support sustainable, health-focused climate risk adaptation, addressing mortality risk and other multi-faceted health impacts.
The Hub has been informed by underpinning research carried out as part of multiple projects addressing different aspects of these issues.
Get in touch with the Healthy Adaptations Team at:
Catherine Butler (University of Exeter) c.butler@exeter.ac.uk | Neil Adger (University of Exeter) n.adger@exeter.ac.uk | Stacey Heath (Open University) stacey.heath@open.ac.uk