Assess climate risk by connecting a specific hazard to the parts of a historic place that are exposed, understanding how their condition and setting make them vulnerable, and judging the consequences against the place’s significance and management needs. A hazard map alone cannot tell you whether a particular building is at risk. Start with the site and the decision you need to make, combine local evidence with inspection and knowledge from people who know the place, and state how you handled uncertainty.
What climate risks should a heritage site plan for?
Climate risk is more than the presence of a hazard. Historic England uses IPCC-aligned language in which risk involves hazard, exposure and vulnerability: a hazard must have a pathway to affect something exposed, and the likely harm depends on how susceptible that asset or value is. Consequences may be physical, cultural, operational or community-related. The same hazard can therefore mean different things for different places.
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Relevant hazards include coastal change; flooding; intense precipitation and wind-driven rain; heat and cold; fire; humidity variation; drought; erosion; landslides; and ground instability, including shrink-swell and desiccation. Historic England’s guidance uses a standardised vocabulary of over 50 hazards to support consistent recording; that is the size of the vocabulary, not a claim that all those hazards affect every site. See Historic England’s Climate Change Risks and Hazards guidance, published 6 September 2024 and updated 3 February 2025.
| Hazard or condition | Possible heritage impact |
|---|---|
| Coastal flooding and erosion | Damage or, in some cases, total loss of an individual asset. |
| Intense rain, river or surface-water flooding, and wind-driven rain | Rainwater ingress, flooding of buildings or historic landscapes, persistent saturation, and worsening erosion. |
| Heat and reduced summer precipitation | Effects on building fabric and collections; changes in plants and pests; and increased fire risk. |
| Humidity changes | Potential harm to collections and building fabric. |
| Drought | Damage to designed landscapes and waterlogged archaeology, changes in ground stability, and worsening erosion. |
| Heavy rainfall on unstable ground | Combined conditions may increase erosion or ground movement and compound damage. |
These are possible pathways, not predictions for every site. Existing problems may be magnified by climate effects, and multiple conditions can interact. Check what is present locally and how a hazard could reach a particular part of the place.
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How do I assess climate risks to a historic building?
Use a repeatable sequence, keeping the assessment proportionate to the decision. The steps below are a practical application of Historic England’s guidance, not a prescribed official form. Its guidance stresses accurate evidence, input from people who know the site and attention to possible future use.
- Set the decision and boundaries. Define the building or site, the area being considered, the responsible owner or organisation, and the purpose of the assessment. Is it for emergency preparedness, routine maintenance, a capital project, a management plan or long-term adaptation? Choose a time horizon that fits the decision and record it; a measure suitable for an immediate maintenance issue may not address a longer-term change. If the site is a World Heritage property, include potential effects on its Outstanding Universal Value and on connected communities.
- Record what matters and what is already happening. Describe the heritage values and attributes to sustain, current condition, materials and construction, previous damage and repairs, drainage and services, landscape or archaeological dependencies, occupancy and use, and maintenance constraints. Identify sensitive components and what their damage, loss or disruption would mean. Consult site staff, custodians, conservation specialists and others with direct knowledge of the place.
- Screen for relevant hazards, then verify local pathways. Use a consistent hazard vocabulary in the site record. For each plausible hazard, ask whether it can reach the site and which features, values or activities it could affect. Do not treat inclusion on a broad hazard list as evidence of local exposure.
- Gather evidence at an appropriate scale. Consider climate projections, hazard maps, local-authority information, environmental-agency datasets, site records, inspections and incident history. For each source, record its name and date, geographic coverage and resolution, scenario or assumptions, time horizon and limitations. A national or regional map can help screen hazards, but it does not prove that a particular building will be damaged. Historic England notes that public tools range from documents and map portals to technical software, and that finding data suitable for a site-level decision can be difficult.
- Describe exposure, vulnerability and consequences. For each hazard, identify the exposed part of the asset or its heritage values, the evidence about susceptibility (including materials, condition, setting and maintenance), and the likely physical, cultural, operational or community consequences. Trace the mechanism rather than writing only “flood risk”: for example, intense rain may overwhelm rainwater goods, water may enter or saturate fabric, and prolonged saturation may damage or destabilise materials. Separate problems already observed from future possibilities.
- Evaluate and prioritise transparently. Choose a qualitative or quantitative approach that fits the decision. State how you treated likelihood, consequence, confidence and timescale, and explain why one issue takes priority over another. Record assumptions, uncertainties and evidence gaps instead of implying that a score is exact or universally comparable.
- Compare responses and make an action plan. Assess plausible options against the hazard and pathway, expected risk reduction over the chosen horizon, effects on significance and historic fabric, feasibility, maintenance burden, cost and delivery constraints, impacts on use and access, co-benefits or trade-offs, uncertainty, reversibility where relevant, and monitoring needs. Select measures that fit the site rather than assuming one intervention suits every historic building. Assign an owner, sequence, resources, dependencies, emergency arrangements and indicators for checking whether each measure works.
- Monitor and revisit. Review the assessment after a damaging event, major repair or change of use, and when relevant local evidence or projections change. Check whether planned measures are working and update the record as condition and site knowledge evolve.
What should a site risk register record?
A compact register makes reasoning and follow-up visible. The following fields are a practical recommendation, not an official Historic England template:
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- Hazard and pathway to the site
- Exposed heritage value, component, activity or community
- Evidence of vulnerability, including condition and maintenance history
- Potential consequence and whether it is observed or projected
- Time horizon, likelihood and confidence, with the method used to describe them
- Existing controls and residual risk after those controls
- Proposed response, responsible person, dependencies and review trigger
- Supporting evidence, including source, date, scale, assumptions and limitations
Historic England’s literature review, published 26 May 2023, found no agreed method for quantifying climate risks to heritage assets in England or internationally. That is the review’s finding at publication, not proof that no later framework exists. Its authors describe risk assessment methodologies as an important first step in identifying impacts and defining adaptation strategies, while warning that an agreed quantification method was lacking at that time. Treat any ranking as a decision aid: disclose the method and its limits rather than presenting a numerical score as a universal measure. Read the review, Approaches to Heritage Climate Change Risk Assessment: an integrative literature review.
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First connect the proposed action to a documented pathway and the heritage value it is meant to protect. Then compare credible alternatives against the same site-specific criteria. A flood measure, for example, should be considered in relation to where water enters or accumulates, what fabric or use is exposed, and whether the response could affect significant fabric, access or future use. The evidence cited here supports site-informed appraisal but does not prescribe a universal weighting formula or a single intervention for all buildings.
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Plan for delivery as well as selection. Set out who is responsible, the order of work, resources and dependencies, any emergency arrangements, and what observation or indicator will show whether the measure is effective. Keep monitoring and maintenance in the plan: a change that depends on ongoing upkeep should not be treated as a one-off solution.
What changes for a World Heritage property?
For a World Heritage property, consider effects on Outstanding Universal Value alongside effects on economic and social development and quality of life in connected communities. Historic England’s World Heritage climate page, updated 4 September 2024, reported that UNESCO’s updated Policy Document on Climate Action for World Heritage had been adopted in November 2023 and that national implementation guidance was then in development. That page records the status as of its update date; it does not establish the current status of that guidance. See Historic England’s World Heritage and Climate Change page.
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When should I seek specialist help?
Use a site inspection and local professional advice where the decision depends on technical interpretation, where damage mechanisms are unclear, or where a proposed intervention could affect significant fabric or values. Historic England notes that choosing suitable data for site-level assessment can be challenging, and its guidance emphasises evidence and knowledge from people who know the place. A generic checklist or map cannot substitute for that work.
Historic England and the English Heritage Trust’s Climate Change Adaptation Report 2024, published 30 October 2024, provides an example of institutional risk assessments and adaptation plans for organisational functions and assets in their care; it is not a universal scoring standard. Historic England’s Researching Heritage, Climate Change and Environment page, updated 11 August 2026, lists continuing work on assessment, hazard vocabulary, mapping, adaptation and building performance.
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