Are there any other ground hazards which will be affected by climate change?
Last week Luke talked to environmental risk expert Dr Tim Farewell’s for his views on the changing subsidence risk for UK property. If you haven’t read our first interview, you can read it here.
In part 2, we ask Tim about other ground hazards evolving for the property industry in the future as a result of our changing climate.
Tim is a geospatial soil and environmental scientist specialising in the dynamic interactions between geohazards and critical infrastructure. He is also the Science and Communications Director at Terrafirma. Terrafirma are pioneers in ground and sub-ground data, information, risk assessment and reporting solutions.
Luke: Are there any other ground hazards which will be affected by climate change?
Tim:
So yes, there are other ground hazards which are likely to change as our climate changes. So, last time we looked at subsidence, that obviously will, but also we’ve got issues like coastal erosion.
So already, we’re seeing increasing rates of coastal erosion on many parts of the coastline. And as these coasts continue to erode they expose more and more properties inland which were built at a kind of safe distance from the shore becoming a lot less safe.
As well as that we’re seeing likely increases in landslide risk and also due to the heavy rainfall from these warmer wetter Winters, an increased risk in what I would call mines and voids. So hidden holes in the ground, which get bigger over time.
And again, if your house is built on top of that, with those intense rainfalls, and more dissolution, can expose those holes to the surface and swallow up bits of property.
Always very scary.
Those are some of the coming changes.
