Are farmers in Gloucestershire who have directly experienced flood

events, more likely to engage with climate change as a risk issue?

Alice Hamilton-WebbPhD, Royal Agricultural University

Supervision by Dr Rhiannon Fisher, Dr Louise Manning and Dr John Conway

Royal Agricultural Universityalice.hamilton-webb@rau.ac.uk

Overview

• Aim and objectives• Background and rationale• Flood risk and climate change – why

Gloucestershire?• Postal survey and headline findings• Plans for next research phase….

Aim and ObjectivesAIM: To explore farmers’ attitudes and response behaviour towards climate change risk in relation to their experiences of flooding in Gloucestershire.

OBJECTIVES: 1)To explore and critically review previous research and literature on flooding, climate change, and farmers’ attitudes to risk and their response behaviour 2)To undertake a quantitative assessment of Gloucestershire farmers’ attitudes and responses to climate change risk, and experience of flood risk as a causal factor 3)To undertake a quantitative assessment of further factors that impact on Gloucestershire farmers’ attitudes and responses to climate change risk4)To use a multi-method approach to link qualitative and quantitative data in order to reflect on farmer engagement with flooding and climate change as issues that impact on their farming practice5)To examine the influence of geographical factors on farmers attitudes and their response behaviour to flooding and risk management within the study group 6)To determine farmer engagement in relation to flood experience as a causal factor and whether they intend to change or have already adapted their management practices on their farms to mitigate the impact of climate change

Why?

Climate Change risk

Farmers’ engagement with climate change risk

Flooding used to encourage action against climate change

Research gap and important implications

Climate Change risk

•Latest IPCC Assessment Report (2014): Despite some ongoing debate, paleoclimate data does support the notion that it is now extremely likely that human influence has been the dominant cause of the observed warming since the mid-20th century.

•Agriculture as a cause of climate change - 43% of total methane emissions 84% of total nitrous oxide emissions (Defra 2011).

•Industry’s capacity to mitigate – UK agricultural sector set a target to reduce GHG emissions by 80% by 2050 (AHDB)

Why?

Climate Change risk

Farmers’ engagement with climate change risk

Flooding used to encourage action against climate change

Research gap and important implications

Farmers’ engagement with climate

change

• Current lack of engagement - 71% not taking any actions to adapt on their farm but 53% are reducing GHG emissions – financially motivated (Wiles 2012)

• Defra Farm Practices Survey 2013 – Energy generation (16%), reducing emissions (55%) and adapting (64%) – associated with various farmer characteristics

• Climate change is psychologically distant

Why?

Climate Change risk

Farmers’ engagement with climate change risk

Flooding used to encourage action against climate change

Research gap and important implications

Flooding used to encourage action against climate change

• Focus of the research – local extreme events

• Relationship between flood experience and greater concern for climate change (Whitmarsh 2008 and Capstick et al 2012)

• Indirect relationship between flood experience and behavioural intention towards climate change response (Spence and Pidgeon 2011)

• Actual response?

Why?

Climate Change risk

Farmers’ engagement with climate change risk

Flooding used to encourage action against climate change

Research gap and important implications

• Little to no research in the UK to look at how farmers have been impacted by flooding and attitudes/behaviour initiated

• Build on existing knowledge of farmer engagement with climate change and add to wider research on farmer behaviour – theories and models

Research gap and important implications

Gloucestershire• Varied landscape and rich flood history

Cotswolds

Severn ValeForest of Dean

2012

2013

Climate change and flooding

• Thermodynamic principles = intensification of hydrological cycle

• Rise in frequency and magnitude of river flows in the UK – fluvial flood risk to increase accordingly

• UKCIP (2009) – winters will become wetter and summers drier and hotter

• The relationship is complex – other contributing factors

Recent flood historyRecent history points to strong trend of more frequent flooding – long term examination shows numerous fluctuations throughout 21st century

Source: Hannaford and Buys (2012)

Multi-method Approach

Postal Survey20% response rate and 14.3% usable response rate =

200 responses

• Farm/farmer characteristics

• Perception towards risk (from animal disease, market volatility, crop disease, extreme weather)

• Experience of flood risk – type, impacts/losses, specific to 2007/2012 events

• Perception of flood risk – personal and to business (and of cause of flooding)

• Flood risk response – type of response

• Attitude towards climate change risk – perception (cause, impact) , concern

• Response towards climate change risk – mitigation and adaptation activities

Headline results: Descriptive analysis

Farm and Farmer characteristics:majority male farm owners, belonging to livestock or mixed farmers, over 45 years of age

Experience of flood risk:60.5% reported flooded land. Varied in extent of impact - most commonly suffered loss of yield, crop quality and fodder supplies.

Perception of flood risk:Over half of respondents do not believe they will be ‘impacted’ by flooding in the future.

Perceived cause of flooding: Half of respondents acknowledge that climate change is at least a moderate cause of recent UK flooding

Headline results: Descriptive analysis• Flood risk response: The majority (67%) have taken no action to adapt to or

mitigate against flooding,

• Attitude towards climate change risk: 57.5% are ‘not at all’ or only ‘slightly concerned’ 57% believe that any climate change is due to a mixture of natural

and anthropogenic factors.

• Climate change risk response: undertaking adaptation or mitigation activities in direct response to

the potential problem was very minimal; instead respondents reported that if they were undertaking the stated activities, it would have been part of normal practice.

Headline findings: Multivariate analysis

Risk Perception

1) Farmers who perceive one risk to be relatively high, are likely to have similar attitudes to other risks

2) Extreme weather is associated with climate change

3) Farmers who had been impacted to a greater extent by flooding are more likely to rate it as a greater threat to business

4) Farmers who had been impacted to a greater extent by flooding ,expressed greater concern about climate change, and also believed climate change was a more major cause of recent UK flooding

5) Farmers who had land flooded in the past are more likely to believe their land is currently affected by climate change, and are more likely to rate the risk from it as higher

Headline findings: Multivariate analysis

Risk Response

Farmers who have been impacted by certain losses/impacts from flooding are more likely to take actions to respond to flood risk, and climate change

Farmers who are more concerned about climate change and believe it is affecting their farm/land are more likely to undertake a greater number of mitigation measures

If a farmer is responding to flood risk, it is likely he is also responding to climate change

Association with location•Geographical location is associated with experience of, perception of, and response to flood risk

Severn Vale – farmers significantly more likely to report impacts from flooding (including greater impact from floods of 07/12) and perceive flooding as a greater threat to business. Also significantly more likely to develop a flood emergency management plan and meet with other farmers to discuss flood strategies

Further questions raised…•Are farmers averse to multiple risks, in terms of attitude?

•Do farmers spontaneously associate extreme weather and flooding with climate change?

•Does experience of flooding automatically mean that farmers perceive its risk as higher?

•Do farmers differ in attitude and behaviour based on their opinion on the human vs. natural debate?

•Have certain flood experiences led to certain risk reduction activities or adaptation/mitigation actions? Does a change in attitude come first?

•What are the barriers and motivations to responding to risk? – part of normal practice?

Any questions, feedback,

comments?

ReferencesAHDB (2011) Greenhouse Gas Action Plan of the Agriculture Industry in England: Progress report and Phase II Delivery.

Azjen, I. (1991) The theory of planned behaviour. Organisational Behaviour and Human Decision Processes. 50: 179-211

Botterill, L. and Mazur, N. (2004) Risk and Risk perception: A literature review. Available

Capstick, S., Pidgeon, N. and Whitehead, M. (2013) Public perceptions of climate change in Wales: Summary findings of a survey of the Welsh public conducted during November and December 2012. Climate Change Consortium of Wales (C3W).

Farming Futures (2011) Farming Futures: Climate Change Survey Stage Five Report. Farming Futures. Available from: http://www.farmingfutures.org.uk/sites/default/files/files/Farming%20Futures%20survey%20February%202011.pdf

Harwood, J., Heifner, R., Coble, K., Perry, J. and Somwaru, A. (1998) Managing Risk in Farming: Concepts, Research, and Analysis. Market and Trade Economics Division and Resource Economics Division, Economic Research Service, Department of Agriculture. Available

Monastersky, R. (2013) Global carbon dioxide levels near worrisome milestone. Nature. 497

Spence, A. and Pidgeon, N. F. (2010) Psychology, climate change and sustainable behaviour. Environment. 52: 9-18

Soloman, S., Rosenlof, K. H., Portmann, R. W., Daniel, J. S., Davis, S. M., Sanford, T. J. and Plattner, G. K. (2010) Contributions of stratospheric water vapor to decadal changes in the rate of global warming. Science. 327: 1219-1223

Tebaldi, C. and Lobell, D. B. (2008) Towards probabilistic projections of climate change impacts on global rop yields. Geophysical Research Letters. 35: 1-6

Whitmarsh, L. (2008) Are flood victims more concerned about climate change than other people? The role of direct experience in risk perception and behavioural response. Journal of Risk Research. 11(3)