The National Framework for Climate Services (NFCS) connects climate services providers and users to facilitate the creation of user driver climate services. The NFCS supports the development of Sectoral Adaptation Plans (SAPs) by engaging with project teams to provide tailored services and information. In addition to providing data, the NFCS is your guide to climate science, services and information during the development and implementation of your SAPs.

View the video below to find out more about the NFCS:

NFCS SAP Support

The NFCS offers sectoral support throughout every step of the SAP process. This support ranges from information on Ireland’s climate and weather events, to climate services to support decision-making. Through our members, the NFCS can provide expertise across the spectrum of climate information for your impact assessment.

We have experts in climate projections, flooding and flood risk management, water flows and adaptation guidance, agricultural climate services and more. See some of our members here:

Sectoral Adaptation Plans Guidelines

Sectoral Adaptation Plans are now underway following the publication of the 2024 National Adaptation Framework (NAF). The associated Sectoral Guidelines document has now been published (which you can find below), paving the way for sectors to start the process.

The guidelines document sets out 6 steps for developing your plan. This page provides a detailed explanation of each of these steps below, to aid in the preparation of your SAP. The NFCS across all its members, can support the development of SAPs at each and every step.

To find out more about any of the below supports, contact the NFCS Helpdesk.

Step 1: Preparing the ground

Developing a key understanding of both the climate of Ireland and climate change is essential to be able to develop a Sectoral Adaptation Plan. Building a baseline understanding of these topics will provide a platform to enable the development of smart adaptation actions relevant to each sector.

To understand the Climate of Ireland and Climate Change and what it is that drives it, there are a number of resources available across the NFCS.

Introductory Information

To gain an understanding of what drives Ireland’s climate and weather patterns see the storymap below and visit the Climate of Ireland webpage for more information.

To further your knowledge on how Ireland’s climate has changed along with the basics of climate change, see the storymap below and visit Climate Change – Met Éireann – The Irish Meteorological Service

Irish Climate Summaries: Current and Future

There are several reports and documents that take an in-depth look at Ireland’s climate, its current state, and the changing climate from present into the future.

Click on each of the reports below to look at Ireland’s climate in terms of future climate projections until the end of the century, a comprehensive look at climate change in Ireland, the climate’s effect on Ireland’s oceans and the status of climate in Ireland.

Step 2: Climate Impact Screening

The climate impact screening step is a key step in understanding the type of adaptation actions you need to develop in order to adapt your sector to changing climate conditions. This step requires sectors to catalogue the weather and climate conditions that have impacted them in both past and future contexts. To help sectors build this profile, the NFCS suggests using the below information and webpages as sources of past events and the potential future climate in Ireland.

To prepare and build a profile of weather and climate events that have impacted your sector, it is important to have a list of the major events that have happened and when they happened.

From a national perspective, the below timeline accounts for major weather events across Ireland.

To develop a similar timeline for your specific sector, follow the link below to the major weather events page where all the historic weather and climate pages have been documented.

Step 3: Prioritisation

When developing a SAP there are many risks and impacts that you could address. However, it is important to be able to prioritise the critical and most impactful risks on your sector. This exercise allows SAP developers to understand where their sector is most at risk to climate. The National Climate Change Risk Assessment (NCCRA) by the EPA has developed a risk register, detailing the most appropriate risks in an Irish context to focus on when developing a SAP. The risk register they have developed is at a national scale, based around themes, and as such may not all be relevant to your sector. It is imperative to prioritise risks specific to your sector in this section. This risk register is, however, an invaluable resource when looking to prioritise risk assessment for your SAP. For more information on this, contact the EPA or visit Climate Ireland – https://www.climateireland.ie/impact-on-ireland/national-climate-change-risk-assessment/ for more information.

Step 4: Priority Impact Assessment

This is the stage of the process where climate information and services are critical to support decision-making. It is essential to have the appropriate supporting climate data to understand the future risk to a sector to climate change. Undertaking a climate risk-assessment to understand how climate hazards will impact the exposure and vulnerability to your sector is essential for decision-making. The NFCS can offer supports in a range of different ways during the Priority Impact Assessment step of the process.

Data to Support Climate Risk Assessment

Imperative to any risk assessment is the availability and accessibility of quality datasets to support the quantitative study being completed. The NFCS’s role in the coordination of climate services and information in Ireland, has enabled the collation of the most appropriate datasets for use in your Sectoral Adaptation Plan. These datasets, have been coordinated with, and are in line with NCCRA data inputs and can be used in conjunction with the technical risk assessment guidance that is due to be published. Below are some of the most widely applicable datasets for your SAP:

TRANSLATE Projections

The TRANSLATE project is a Met Éireann lead initiative to standardise future climate projections for Ireland and develop climate services that meet the climate information needs of decision makers.

TRANSLATE offers future climate projections that align with NCCRA technical guidance and can support the development of SAPs. The projections allow users to examine what Ireland may look like in a future climate at present day, mid-century and end of century timescales and across different potential emission pathways (RCPs), from early action to late action.

TRANSLATE data is freely available to all on Climate Ireland’s data explorer, or by contacting Ireland’s Climate Service helpdesk – nfcs@met.ie.

Nolan and Flanagan 2020 Projections

ICHEC’s CMIP5 Nolan and Flanagan 2020 climate projections, offer some of the climate variables that are not yet available from the TRANSLATE projections.

These include wind and snowfall variables.

In the absence of these variables through the TRANSLATE project, the Nolan and Flanagan projections should be used.

These are available by contacting ICHEC for the data.

*Note* – The TRANSLATE team are currently working on developing wind variables

Flooding – Accessing Data

Flooding creates a significant amount of risk for people across the country. Floods affect the country nationwide and will continue to do so into the future.

Floods are created through a number of different ways:

Pluvial
Fluvial
Coastal
Groundwater

Data to assess future flooding is available for Ireland. There are different datasets available for different types of flooding.

Pluvial and fluvial – OPW’s CFRAM & NIFM.

Coastal – OPW’s National Coastal Flood Hazard Mapping

Groundwater – GSI’s GWFlood – Groundwater Project

For more information and to view flood maps for each of different flood types above, go to floodinfo.ie/map/floodmaps
or https://data.gov.ie/

To access the data, contact the OPW.

Climate Risk Assessments

Climate risk assessments are an essential part of the process for developing an adaptation plan to climate change. Undertaking risk assessment provides a scientific evidence base to the future climate risk. A more detailed assessment enables sectors to understand future climate and weather-related hazards and impacts accounting for spatial and temporal variations in these and associated uncertainties.

This detailed assessment can also facilitate the contribution of exposure and vulnerability metrics, ensuring a comprehensive view of future climate risks is defined.

There are two types of data driven risk assessments:

Semi-quantitative
Fully-quantitative

National Climate Change Risk Assessment (NCCRA)

The EPA is leading in the provision of a National Climate Change Risk Assessment. It is aimed at supporting planning for adaptation to and mitigation of climate change impacts – providing insights into the solutions needed to inform the climate change adaptation planning process.

The process should set out the priority impacts of climate change for Ireland which will provide a basis for making decisions on whether risks are acceptable to society or communities. It will then determine how risks can be reduced and how potential opportunities can be realised. This will be a systematic semi-quantitative iterative risk assessment process that supports identification, assessment, and prioritisation of climate change risks that are underpinned by consistent climate information and accounts for uncertainty in climate projections.

There are two documents documenting the process of the NCCRA that will assist you when carrying out a climate risk assessment, the methodology report and the technical guidance document.

The methodology is a working document and the final methodology will be available along with the final report, summary for policymakers and all accompanying reports in Q1 2025.

Technical Guidance for Sectoral Risk Assessment has also been developed as part of the process to ensure consistency across national and sectoral planning. This guidance assists sectors in implementing climate change risk assessments that are consistent with the National Climate Change Risk Assessment Methodology.”

Semi-Quantitative Risk Assessment

Semi-quantitative risk assessment is an established approach to climate risk assessment. Implemented not only by the new Irish NCCRA being developed by EPA, but also follows best practice internationally from EU, UK and New Zealand climate change risk assessments.

Semi-quantitative risk assessments use a combination of nationally consistent sources of climate change data, qualitative information (assigned a numerical value) and stakeholder and expert knowledge. In this case, the risk assessment would use three types of data sets, climate change hazard (TRANSLATE), exposure to climate change and vulnerability to climate change.

This approach provides a more detailed understanding of the climate change risks and opportunities and adds scientific weighting to an assessment of climate risk. Semi-quantitative studies can be the first step to understanding and highlighting potential climate risks and can inform you when a fully-quantitative study is required.

Offering sectors the ability to define climate risk is important. Through the incorporation of climate data, and sector specific exposure and vulnerability metrics, the semi-quantitative risk assessment can do this.

TRANSLATE Semi-quantitative risk assessment framework

As part of the TRANSLATE project, the project team developed a semi-quantitative risk assessment framework. The framework provides a step-by-step guide to a risk assessment, with the ability to tailor it to the individual user.

The framework is hosted by Met Éireann and the NFCS who can work closely with each sector to calculate a risk assessment specific to them.

This risk assessment approach incorporates future climate projection hazard data from TRANSLATE and sector specific data on exposure and vulnerability. The assessment is GIS based and allows for a visual representation of the produced climate risk.

Click here to view full screen storymap.

Step 5: Develop Your Plan

This step is the culmination of all the work done on climate impact screening, climate risk assessments and beyond. Identifying adaptation actions to be put in place during the implementation and monitoring phase of the plan.

At every stage of the plan, including this step, the NFCS is available and ready to help advise you on climate information and services. The NFCS welcome engagement throughout the process and are available at any point by contacting the Helpdesk at NFCS@met.ie

Step 6: Implement, Evaluate and Review

At this point, your plan has been published and approved for action.

Key to the whole process is that the SAPs need to define actionable tasks which are implemented and evaluated.

The NFCS, while there to support the development of your plan, it is also there to support the implementation, evaluation and review of the plan.

As the coordinator of climate services across Ireland, the NFCS remains on board during the implementation portion of the Sectoral Adaptation Plans.

This may take the form of engaging in steering committees for projects coming out as actions in the SAPs, assisting in working groups for sectors trying to build on the actions set out in the plans, or to offer assistance and guidance with any climate service and information needs.

The NFCS has a contactable helpdesk that is more than happy to meet and assist sectors.