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Consortium wins grant to explore climate change and possible risk to health

Press release issued: 9 November 2015

The University of Bristol is part of a consortium that will investigate the potential risk from a changing climate and extreme weather to people’s health across the city. The project, funded by Innovate UK and the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC), will combine the latest methods in economic valuation and systems modelling and explore the strategic level response to evidence and opportunities for minimising costs.

The project, which started last month and runs until September 2016, is led by independent research consultancy, Daniel Black & Associates (db+a), working in partnership with the University of Bristol, University of Bath, Bristol Health Partners and Bristol City Council. Advice on climate adaptation is provided by the Global Climate Adaptation Partnership (GCAP).

This project builds on the success of the previous Innovate UK/NERC feasibility study (March 2014 – February 2015), carried out in partnership with the University of Manchester, which worked with large social housing provider, Aster Group, to value their exposure to flooding, heating and subsidence and to start exploring adaptation options. The key distinctions between the two projects are: the focus on population health (and associated data sets); and the exploration of multi-agency risk.

Dr Mike Yearworth, Reader in Engineering Systems in the Faculty of Engineering at the University of Bristol, is leading the systems modelling activity with key stakeholders and Dr Alistair Hunt at the University Bath is responsible for delivering the economic valuation model for the project and.

​David Relph, Director of Bristol Health Partners, said: “This is a genuinely innovative and exciting project. We are keen to work with the team to deliver this important evidence and explore with them how we as a consortium might best respond.”

Further information

Bristol City Council is led by the city’s first publicly elected Mayor, George Ferguson, and has a turnover of around £1billion a year. Named the 2015 European Green Capital, Bristol is pioneering approaches to energy, waste, food and travel. With 35 wards and 70 Councillors who serve diverse communities, Bristol City Council supports a vibrant city of citizens, students and businesses.
 
Bristol Health Partners is a strategic collaboration between the City’s three NHS Trusts, three clinical commissioning groups, two universities and the local (city) authority. Together the partnership organisations service over 1m people living in the Bristol area; employ over 40,000 people; have a turnover of £2.6 billion; and a research income of £190 million.

Daniel Black & Associates (db+a) is a research consultancy and service innovator that specialises in transformative urban development planning.

The Global Climate Adaptation Partnership is a specialist company that provides consulting, training and knowledge management services for climate adaptation in the UK and globally.

The University of Bath is one of the UK’s leading universities, ranked number one in the UK for student satisfaction for the last two years in the National Student Survey (NSS) and in the top ten of all national league tables, including being named ‘Best Campus University’ in the Sunday Times Good University Guide 2014. Our Mission is to deliver world class research and teaching, educating our students to become future leaders and innovators, and benefiting the wider population through our research, enterprise and influence. Our courses are innovative and interdisciplinary and we have an outstanding record of graduate employment.

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