Terrafirma: Climate Change and Ground Hazards

Episode 6 – Climate change and ground hazards

The UK Climate Predictions (UKCP) provide the most up-to-date assessment of how our climate may change over the 21st Century and make it clear that we will continue to see higher temperatures, changing rainfall patterns and more severe weather conditions. Inevitably this will change the magnitude and distribution of ground stability hazards like soil subsidence, landslides and the erosion of the coast and rivers, while also impacting sinkholes, subsidence and collapse from man-made hazards like mining.

In this 20-minute episode, Dr Tim Farewell, a geospatial environmental data scientist – who has dedicated his academic career to minimising the impacts of ground hazards on society – explains how ground hazards will respond to a changing climate, focusing on the key risks to property and land and how they are changing across the nation.

About the presenter

Dr Tim Farewell is one of the UK’s leading academics on ground hazards specialising in the dynamic interactions between geohazards and property and infrastructure. He works closely with research data including climate change models to map changes in ground conditions and is convinced of the need to better the understanding of the often complex environmental-infrastructure interactions.