Heatwaves: An invisible risk in UK policy and research

Abstract

In 2019, a heatwave - an unusual extended period of hot weather - broke the UK's highest recorded temperature of 38.7°C set in 2003. Of concern is that for summer 2019, this resulted in 892 excess deaths. With the intensity and frequency of UK heatwaves projected to increase, and summer temperatures predicted to be 5°C hotter by 2070, urgent action is needed to prepare for, and adapt to, the changes now and to come. Yet it remains unclear what actions are needed and by whom. In response, a systematic literature review of UK heatwaves peer-reviewed publications, inclusive of keyword criteria (total papers returned = 183), was conducted to understand what lessons have been learnt and what needs to happen next. Our research shows that heatwaves remain largely an invisible risk in the UK. Communication over what UK residents should do, the support needed to make changes, and their capacity to enact those changes, is often lacking. In turn, there is an inherent bias where research focuses too narrowly on the health and building sectors over other critical sectors, such as agriculture. An increased amount of action and leadership is therefore necessary from the UK government to address this.

Full text

Environmental Science and Policy 116 (2021) 1–7
Available online 10 November 2020
1462-9011/© 2020 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
Heatwaves: An invisible risk in UK policy and research
Chloe Brimicombe
a
,
*, James J. Porter
b
, Claudia Di Napoli
c
, Florian Pappenberger
d
,
Rosalind Cornforth
e
, Celia Petty
e
,
f
, Hannah L. Cloke
a
,
g
,
h
,
i
a
Department of Geography and Environmental Science, University of Reading, RG6 6AB, UK
b
Department of Geography, King’s College London, WC2B 4BG, UK
c
School of Agriculture, Policy and Development, University of Reading, RG6 6EU, UK
d
European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF), Shineld Park, Reading, RG2 9AX, UK
e
Walker Institute, University of Reading, Reading, RG6 6EU, UK
f
Evidence for Development, University of Reading, Reading, RG6 6EU, UK
g
Department of Meteorology, University of Reading, Reading, RG6 6UR, UK
h
Department of Earth Sciences, Uppsala University, SE-751 05, Uppsala, Sweden
i
Centre of Natural Hazards and Disaster Science, CNDS, SE-751 05, Uppsala, Sweden
ARTICLE INFO
Keywords:
Heatwave
UK
Policy
Health
Building
Risk
ABSTRACT
In 2019, a heatwave – an unusual extended period of hot weather – broke the UK’s highest recorded temperature
of 38.7 ◦C set in 2003. Of concern is that for summer 2019, this resulted in 892 excess deaths. With the intensity
and frequency of UK heatwaves projected to increase, and summer temperatures predicted to be 5 ◦C hotter by
2070, urgent action is needed to prepare for, and adapt to, the changes now and to come. Yet it remains unclear
what actions are needed and by whom. In response, a systematic literature review of UK heatwaves peer-
reviewed publications, inclusive of keyword criteria (total papers returned =183), was conducted to under-
stand what lessons have been learnt and what needs to happen next. Our research shows that heatwaves remain
largely an invisible risk in the UK. Communication over what UK residents should do, the support needed to
make changes, and their capacity to enact those changes, is often lacking. In turn, there is an inherent bias where
research focuses too narrowly on the health and building sectors over other critical sectors, such as agriculture.
An increased amount of action and leadership is therefore necessary from the UK government to address this.
1. Introduction
In 2019, a heatwave broke the UK’s highest ever recorded temper-
ature of 38.7 ◦C set in 2003. Over 2 heatwaves 892 excess deaths were
recorded (Public Health England, 2019). Of concern here is that the
intensity, frequency, and duration of UK heatwaves are all projected to
increase, and summer temperatures are predicted to be 5 ◦C hotter by
2070 (Lowe et al., 2018) yet the UK Government’s efforts to prepare for,
and adapt to, these risks has been heavily criticised for leaving the UK
‘woefully unprepared’ (Carrington, 2018; The Committee on Climate
Change, 2017; Environmental Audit Committee, 2018; Howarth et al.,
2019).
Too often the problems of heatwaves are narrowly dened as one
concerned with public health alone. To date, the only tangible heatwave
plan in the UK is led by the Department of Health and Social Care and is
aimed primarily at healthcare service providers (Public Health England,
2018). Yet heatwaves can have other negative impacts too. For instance,
they can affect ‘critical national infrastructure such as transport, digital
systems and water supply…’ cause ‘railway tracks [to buckle which] are
costly to repair’ and in 2010 led to economic losses of £770 million
related to lost staff days (Environmental Audit Committee, 2018: 4). The
risks posed by heatwaves are, importantly, not conned to a single
sector but cut across different sectors in both predictable and unpre-
dictable ways (Howarth et al., 2019). Such ‘silo thinking’, where an
issue is only dealt with by individual sectors with little or no commu-
nication between affected sectors (c.f. Pregernig, 2014; Rogers-Hayden
et al., 2011), has become politically ingrained in how the UK approaches
the management of heatwaves.
In turn, the UK’s research and forecasting arrangements for heat-
waves are institutionally fragmented. The UK Met Ofce is responsible
for providing meteorological and climatological data and advice to
policymakers and the public nationwide. In partnership with Public
* Corresponding author.
E-mail address: c.r.brimicombe@pgr.reading.ac.uk (C. Brimicombe).
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Environmental Science and Policy
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/envsci
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envsci.2020.10.021
Received 30 March 2020; Received in revised form 17 August 2020; Accepted 23 October 2020

Environmental Science and Policy 116 (2021) 1–7
2
Health England, the Met Ofce runs an early warning system for heat-
waves from 1st June to 15th September each year (Met Ofce, 2020).
Yet this service only covers England. Scotland, Wales and Northern
Ireland receive no ofcial warnings, and it is unclear to what extent they
are covered by the National Severe Weather Warnings system (Met Of-
ce, 2020). Institutional peculiarities are found in the evidence base
used to inform government policy too. As part of the UK’s 2008 Climate
Change Act, a risk assessment must be conducted every ve years to
identify which climate risks the UK faces, and therein, inform a National
Adaptation Programme to tackle these risks. Whilst the rst and second
Climate Change Risk Assessments called for urgent action to address
heatwaves (The Committee on Climate Change, 2017; DEFRA, 2018),
the problem of overheating – whereby a building becomes too hot
reducing comfort and productivity for those using that space – will only
be addressed from 2023, too late to cover new homes built to meet the
Government’s housing targets of 1.5 million by 2022 (Committee on
Climate Change, 2020).
Another challenge here is that there is no universal denition for
what a ‘heatwave’ is. For instance, the World Meteorological Organi-
zation (2018: 4) denes a heatwaves as, ‘A period of marked unusual hot
weather (maximum, minimum and daily average temperature) over a
region persisting at least three consecutive days during the warm period
of the year based on local (station-based) climatological conditions, with
thermal conditions recorded above given thresholds’. The UK Met Of-
ce, by contrast, denes a heatwave as a point ‘when a location records a
period of at least three consecutive days with maximum temperatures
meeting or exceeding a heatwave temperature threshold’ (McCarthy
et al., 2019). Although subtle these denitions reveal competing criteria
for what constitutes a heatwave: the uniqueness of the event itself vs.
exceedance of a predetermined temperature threshold, which only adds
to confusion when planning to manage the impact of heatwaves, espe-
cially when mortality rates can also increase from above average tem-
peratures not just from a heatwave (Abeling, 2015). For this study, a
heatwave will be dened as an unusual period of extended hot weather.
At present, research suggests that the problem faced by the UK in
managing heatwaves is a political one (Environmental Audit Committee,
2018; Howarth et al., 2019). Either there is insufcient political appe-
tite, patchiness in provision of forecasting services, or a lack of capacity
to implement policies. Yet such reading pays little attention to what
‘research’ is being used to inform heatwave policy in the UK and why
silo-thinking has taken root. To better understand how UK heatwave
research has developed over the last twenty years, and importantly to
assess what are the drivers, barriers and recommendations for future
heatwave policy, a systematic literature review was conducted. This
research seeks to pinpoint where the problem of inaction comes from
and what could be done in response. To do this, the data and methods
used to conduct the systematic literature review are explained in the
next section, followed by the key ndings, and a discussion of what those
ndings mean and why they are important.
2. Data and methods
To understand how UK heatwave research has developed over the
last twenty years, and to assess the main drivers, barriers and recom-
mendations for future policy, a systematic literature review was con-
ducted (cf. Berrang-Ford et al., 2010; Porter et al., 2014; Porter and
Birdi, 2018). Web of Science, and Scopus, two of the largest and most
comprehensive publication index databases, were used to perform a
keyword search for peer-reviewed research published between 1st
January 2000 and 31st December 2019. Research published prior to
2000 was excluded because the UK’s ten hottest years on record have
happened in the last two decades and the frequency, intensity and
duration of UK heatwaves have also increased since that point
(McCarthy et al., 2019).
Systematic literature reviews offer an effective, transparent,
accountable, and reproducible method for identifying, analysing and
synthesising large amounts of published research (Ford et al., 2011). By
making both the selection criteria and the analytical framework used
explicit from the outset, biases can be reduced and more reliable con-
clusions reached. As noted earlier, the term ‘heatwave’ is understood
and enacted differently across disciplines – hot spells, extreme weather
events, severe heat – and therefore different keyword combinations
were used to ensure the topic was comprehensively searched (see Sup-
plementary Materials). In total, 33 keywords were used across 3 cate-
gories: (i) topic: heatwave identifying characteristics; (ii) purpose: policy
and research domains; and (iii) place: countries within the United
Kingdom. 183 publications were returned. After importing the publi-
cations to an MS Excel spreadsheet, inclusion and exclusion criterion
were applied.
Only empirical, peer-reviewed, publications written in English and
focusing on UK heatwave policy were analysed. Impact studies that only
focused on modelling future mortality rates or temperature projections,
for instance, and papers concerned with detection and attribution, were
excluded. Publications that failed to address the main drivers, barriers,
and recommendations for formulating and/or implementing UK heat-
wave policy, were also excluded. 52 journal articles fullled the inclu-
sion criteria.
To ensure consistency, a qualitative scorecard was created to record
key details about the retained journal articles including funding sources,
disciplinary orientation, research focus, and methods used. This data
helped to build a picture on ‘what’ research was being done, and in
‘which’ sector, so that linkages and gaps could be identied. A thematic
analysis of the dataset was then performed whereby a ranking criterion
was developed to differentiate between the high-quality, empirically
robust, publications and the less rigorous studies using a grading system
from one to ve. A ve-star paper used method(s) highly appropriate for
the research question(s), included a large sample size (e.g. >200 survey
subjects or 50 interview participants), and were critically and reexively
analysed. By contrast, a two-star paper or below was more exploratory in
nature, with lower data points (e.g. <50 survey respondents or <10
interview participants), and the ndings were more speculative (see
Supplementary Materials).
20 journal articles (38.5 % of the retained search) scored three-stars
or above and were analysed. Of these, different research designs were
used such as quantitative (n =7), qualitative (n =7), and mixed
methods (n =6), and the sectors covered focused on: health (n =8),
building/infrastructure (n =6) and behaviour/adaptation (n =6).
3. Results
To date, the UK’s most prominent heatwave policy is the ‘Heatwave
Plan for England’ (see Supplementary Materials for full details). It covers
England only, however (n =9/20 – number of papers out of total that
mentioned this policy) (Public Health England, 2018). Under the plan,
responsibilities are divided between the Department of Health and So-
cial Care, which takes the lead role in coordinating heatwaves responses
across the National Health Service (NHS) and community health ser-
vices, and the UK Met Ofce, which forecasts heatwaves and issues
warnings to healthcare practitioners and Local Government (Met Ofce,
2020).
Our review suggests that questions remain over the effectiveness of
the interventions proposed by the Heatwave Plan for England, whether
these interventions are aimed at the right people, and if sufcient efforts
are being made to manage heat risk in sectors beyond health Many
studies praised the Heatwave Plan, for putting in place reactive mea-
sures, which are reviewed annually (Abeling, 2015; Abrahamson and
Raine, 2009; Khare et al., 2015; Page et al., 2012). However, these
studies also raised challenges the Heatwave Plan doesn’t address, for
instance, Abeling (2015: 7) suggested that the plan failed to ‘consider
social, environmental and technical risk dimensions’, which is due to the
reactive nature of the plan. Whilst Page et al. (2012) argued that the
heatwave plan does not address the risks posed to mental health
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Environmental Science and Policy 116 (2021) 1–7
3
patients, especially those based in the community.
Several studies (n =3/20) also referred to the important role that
national climate change policies can play such as the UK’s latest Climate
Change Risk Assessment, which identied heatwaves and building
overheating as ‘high risk’ (The Committee on Climate Change, 2017),
and the National Adaptation Plan, which seeks to address these risks
(DEFRA, 2018). Of interest here is the Climate Change Risk Assessment
considers the level of heat risk to be the same for all parts of the UK. Our
review, however, found that the evidence base for heatwave research
varies geographically as 94 % (n =172/183) of the returned results for
the original Scopus search focused on England, and only fraction
considered Wales (n =10/183) and Scotland (n =1/183), with North-
ern Ireland absent altogether (n =0/183).
In terms of the building sector, which is responsible for designing and
building new homes, ofce space, schools, and other properties; there is
no ofcial Government policy and/or legislation that requires over-
heating to be factored into new builds. Rather ‘best practice’ involves
following the Chartered Institution of Building Services Engineers
(CIBSE) thermal comfort guidance (CIBSE, 2013, 2015, 2017). Yet
two-thirds of the overheating studies reviewed suggest that upwards of
20 % UK buildings exceed the maximum thermal comfort limit for a
normal UK summer, without additional extreme heat, or the projected
higher summer temperatures from climate change (Baborska-Naro˙
zny
et al., 2017; Vellei et al., 2017).
3.1. What are the main drivers for formulating and/or implementing UK
heatwave policy?
Of the 20 papers reviewed, the main drivers that inuence the
formulation and/or implementation of UK heatwave policy were: (i) the
occurrence of a heatwave event(s); (ii) concerns about the frequency,
severity and duration of heatwaves increasing due to climate change;
and (iii) growing recognition of the wide range of vulnerabilities
exposed by heatwaves. The vast majority of papers (80 %, n =16/20)
found that heatwaves, such as the 2003 European heatwave, were
instrumental in the development of new policies and/or plans as well as
research into warning systems and coping strategies.
Nearly half of the papers (40 %, n =8/20) agreed that the growing
scientic infrastructure around heatwave forecasting, particularly in
relation to climate change risk assessments and projections, was also a
driving force in the formulation and implementation of UK heatwave
planning. It was noted that as the frequency, severity and duration of
heatwaves increase, if the UK does not adapt fully and soon key sectors,
including healthcare and agriculture, could fail (The Committee on
Climate Change, 2017). Indeed, the UK’s 2019 climate projections
suggest that the 2003 heatwave will become a normal event for UK
summers by 2040 (Murphy et al., 2019).
Over a third of the papers (35 %, n =7/20) agreed that the growing
recognition of vulnerabilities exposed by heatwaves played an impor-
tant role in driving UK heatwave policy and/or plans. The Intergov-
ernmental Panel on Climate Change, for instance, denes ‘vulnerability’
as ‘the propensity or predisposition to be adversely affected’ and it
‘encompasses a variety of concepts and elements including sensitivity or
susceptibility to harm and lack of capacity to cope and adapt’ (IPCC
et al., 2013, p. 128). How vulnerability is dened depends, however, on
the sector. Healthcare studies (n =9/20) identied vulnerable groups as
those above the age of 65 and/or those with pre-existing medical con-
ditions such as respiratory diseases (Abrahamson and Raine, 2009; Page
et al., 2012). Infrastructure studies (n =6/20), by contrast, focus on
vulnerable as the capacity for buildings or equipment to cope with
excess temperatures such as the failure of signals for the railway network
(Ferranti et al., 2016, 2018; Larcom et al., 2019).
3.2. What barriers were identied to the formation and/or
implementation of UK heatwave policy?
14 barriers were identied to the formulation and/or implementa-
tion of UK heatwave policy or plans. As shown in Fig. 1, the most
frequent barrier cited was the perception that heatwaves are not a risk
(n =10/20). Prior to 2003, heatwaves in the UK were fairly uncommon
occurring in 1976 and 1995 (see Fig. 2). This may help clarify why, as
Wolf et al. (2010: 47) explains, ‘long term and anticipatory responses to
heat [are] perceived as largely unnecessary because of a belief that heat
waves are and will remain rather uncommon in the UK’.
A quarter of the studies (25 %, n =5/20) also commented on how
UK heatwaves are ‘invisible’ in comparison to other extreme meteoro-
logical events (Abeling, 2015; de Bruin et al., 2016; Ferranti et al., 2018;
Murtagh et al., 2019; Taylor et al., 2014). As Murtagh et al. (2019)
suggests, the visual impact and newsworthiness of ood events captures
public attention far more than heatwaves, in part because newspaper
coverage tends to link hot weather with barbeques and other positive
outdoor pursuits as opposed to there being a risk. Indeed, Taylor et al.
(2014) found that UK residents believe that oods are more likely to
increase due to climate change than heatwaves. Adapting our original
search in Scopus to account for oods instead of heatwaves, returned
1766 results for the keyword ood compared to 68 results for the
keyword heatwave, which suggests that difference in public perceptions
may also be related to a research bias in favour of ood risk studies over
heatwave research.
A lack of research into different areas impacted by heatwaves was
also identied by a third of the studies (35 %, n =7/20) as a barrier.
Although the 2003 European heatwave has served to generate more
research in the healthcare and building sectors, other at-risk sectors
including transport, energy, water and food are largely ignored. Even
when research is happening the focus can be somewhat narrow. For
instance, much of the research from the building sector concentrates on
homes, with research on other building types such as schools and ofces
having to play catch up (Montazami and Nicol, 2013). In turn, behaviour
studies suggest that building research rarely considers the motivation
and capacity of users to tackle concerns with overheating risks or the
role played by mental health and pro-environmental values (Khare et al.,
2015; Murtagh et al., 2019; Page et al., 2012).
The barriers outlined in this section can hinder the uptake of heat-
wave research in policy decision-making. A research bias in favour of
oods, for instance, serves to keep heatwaves as an ‘invisible’ risk whilst
the amount of research conducted on some sectors (e.g. healthcare,
building) can skew which risks are identied and who should be
responsible for dealing with them so that a form of silo thinking develops
in policy debates. Indeed, the UK’s latest National Adaptation Plan uses
the word ‘heat*’ 70 times compared to 251 times for ‘ood*’ (DEFRA,
2018).
3.3. What solutions were proposed to improve the formulation and/or
implementation of UK heatwave policy?
Just under half of the studies reviewed (40 %, n =8/20) agreed that
a key solution to managing heatwaves is through ‘targeted action’. For
example, where a railway signal is at-risk of failing in a heatwave, a
‘targeted action’ would be to replace it before this occurred (Ferranti
et al., 2016, 2018). Targeted action, therefore, involves identifying,
assessing, and proactively intervening in current systems to reduce, or
avoid, the negative impacts associated with a heatwave. For the
healthcare plan, this could involve a shift away from concentrating re-
sponsibilities in a single Government department and redistributing
those responsibilities according to where heat presents a risk across
Government as a whole (Oven et al., 2012).
Another main solution discussed was how to better communicate
heat risks using different strategies, across different geographical scales,
and aimed at different actors. This was identied through 3 separate
C. Brimicombe et al.

Environmental Science and Policy 116 (2021) 1–7
4
themes/scales: nationwide engagement with the population (n =4/20),
community-based engagement (n =4/20) and the use of media (n =3/
20). Most communication solutions were proposed by research partici-
pants who were surveyed or interviewed through the studies. Abra-
hamson et al. (2008), for instance, reported that respondents suggested
heatwaves should be incorporated in television or radio storylines, as a
creative way to present the risk to a large proportion of the population.
Whilst others have called on the Met Ofce to give heatwaves names
similar to winter storms to help persuade the media, and by extension
the public, of the serious risks heatwaves pose (Ward, 2019).
Furthermore, the papers reviewed agreed that more research could
hold the answer to identify which sectors are at-risk, where targeted
action is needed, and provide a richer and more robust evidence base to
inform policymaking. One concern raised is that the UK’s National
Adaptation Plan seeks to empower the public to make decisions in their
own interest to reduce their exposure to heat risks (Abeling, 2015;
DEFRA, 2018). Yet the studies analysed suggest that the evidence base
for heatwaves lacks sufcient depth to be able to inform policy on how
to help people improve their adaptive capacity, drill down into the
important role that social networks play in building up their resilience
(Abrahamson et al., 2008; Wolf et al., 2010); or how the difference be-
tween a tenant and homeowner can limit adaptive capacities. More
research was called for to better understand what solutions can be
offered, and if these solutions are context specic (Baborska-Naro˙
zny
et al., 2017; Murtagh et al., 2019).
4. Discussion
A major challenge faced by nation-states as well as international
bodies over how best to manage heatwaves relates to a lack of evidence
and inconsistencies within the evidence base that is available (e.g.
geographical, sectoral). In the UK, silo thinking has taken root in the
policy arena as the healthcare sector and building/infrastructure sector
have been proactive in developing policies, plans and guidance, whilst
other at-risk sectors are largely ignored. In turn, the research community
has produced evidence to support these policy domains but again largely
Fig. 1. Treemap visualisation of all 14 barriers identied in the dataset. The different size boxes represent the level of agreement within the dataset.
Fig. 2. Summer Mean Temperature for the UK 1960-2019. The purple line represents the trend of the summer mean temperatures from 1960 to 2019; the orange line
depicts a smoothed rolling mean line of the summer mean temperatures; and the green line shows the 90th Percentile of summer mean temperatures from 1960 to
2019, purple values above this line indicate heatwaves (Met Ofce, 2018).
C. Brimicombe et al.

Environmental Science and Policy 116 (2021) 1–7
5
ignored the challenges faced by other sectors and an imbalance between
heatwave and ood risk research has emerged. As a result, UK policy and
research on heatwaves have worked together to produce this ‘invisible
risk’.
4.1. Why are there discrepancies in the reporting and analysis of extreme
weather events?
Arguably the imbalance in research between oods and heatwaves is
borne out of a legacy, where triggering events motivate research and
policy changes, which historically has favoured the higher frequency of
ood events in the UK (Met Ofce, 2019). With more research written
about UK ooding than heatwaves, an ‘availability effect’ has devel-
oped. That is, the importance of something is directly related to how
prevalent it is and/or how it is perceived (Khare et al., 2015). Media
reporting of extreme weather events has contributed to the ‘availability
effect’ by framing oods as a risk, and heatwaves as an opportunity
(Wolf et al., 2010).
Of interest here, is that discrepancies between extreme weather
events is not unique to the UK. In 2017, the European Environment
Agency released its report on ‘Climate Change Adaptation and Disaster
Risk Reduction’. A keyword search of the document for ‘ood*’ and
‘heat*’, returned 446 and 186 mentions respectively (European Envi-
ronment Agency, 2017). Despite the European Union funding research
projects on extreme heat, an imbalance exists in which extreme weather
events are given top billing. At the international level, reports by the
OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) and
the WMO (World Meteorological Organisation), on Climate Change
Adaptation and services the word ‘ood*’ appears at least twice as often
as the word ‘heat*’ (GFCS, 2016; OECD, 2018). Yet for health and
climate change reports by WHO (World Health Organisation), ‘heat*’
does appear more frequently than ‘ood*’, but suggests that extreme
heat remains an ‘invisible risk’ outside of the health sector (WHO, 2019;
2018).
4.2. Are heatwaves an ‘invisible risk’?
Our review shows that, outside of a select few policy domains, yes
heatwaves remain an ‘invisible risk’ in the UK. However, a growing body
of literature is seeking to change this by broadening the scope of
research into other at-risk sectors. The grey literature may offer a tem-
plate for the research community to follow here. The Joseph Rowntree
Foundation, for instance, has commissioned several studies on heat risks
that capture the experiences of practitioners and stakeholders working
and living in exposed sectors, and found that the Heatwave Plan for
England is too reactive in that it focuses on coping rather than building
adaptive capacity within communities (Benzie et al., 2011). Likewise,
the UK’s second Climate Change Risk Assessment brought together in-
sights from researchers and practitioners to review how heat risk had
been discussed across different sectors, with the ndings aimed at pol-
icymakers across the full breadth of Government (The Committee on
Climate Change, 2017). Such efforts reveal how the prole of heat risks
can be increased via more interdisciplinary and collaborative projects,
and why future research should focus on mining the grey literature to
see how to accelerate the changes it calls for in both policy and research
too.
4.3. Why is dening heat-related vulnerability key?
Vulnerability was a central theme throughout the reviewed papers.
Heatwaves events served to reveal where social inequalities exist in the
capacity of people, buildings/infrastructure, and sectors to respond
effectively. Yet it is important to remember that vulnerability is not
static but dynamic. Different studies, and different sectors, con-
ceptualised and enacted the discourse on vulnerability differently.
Whereas for healthcare professionals ‘vulnerability’ concerns the ability
of ‘people’ to adapt and respond, for building/infrastructure researchers
‘vulnerability’ concerns the ‘physical apparatus’ that allows everyday
life to function (Curtis et al., 2017; Larcom et al., 2019; Murtagh et al.,
2019; Page et al., 2012; Wolf and McGregor, 2013). One solution made
in the review was that the Health and Social Care Act 2012 could be
updated to include consideration for climate change, and particularly
heat risk, as this would help mainstream the need to address vulnera-
bilities across all policy areas in Government (Rauken et al., 2015). This
has also been highlighted in the grey literature (see Benzie et al., 2011;
Royal Society et al., 2014).
4.4. What action is needed on overheating in buildings and at work?
To date, the vast majority of the research into building overheating
has focused on homes. Despite research suggesting that up to 20 % of
homes currently experience overheating problems during an average UK
summer, new houses built in line with Government housing plans do not
have to factor overheating into their designs (Peacock et al., 2010;
Wilson and Barton, 2018). Moreover, the UK Government’s own
research has already found that new homes do overheat, but no policy
action has been taken (MHCLG, 2019). New legislation on building
standards is needed as ‘best practice’ guidance is not working (CIBSE,
2013, 2015; 2017).
It is also surprising the main research has been on homes given that –
outside of a global pandemic – people come into contact with a wide
variety of building types in their everyday lives. A growing body of
literature is seeking to addresses the problem of overheating in other
buildings such as hospitals, schools and ofces (The Committee on
Climate Change, 2017; Montazami and Nicol, 2013). But there is
currently no ‘maximum’ safe working temperature under the UK’s
Workplace (Health, Safety and Welfare) Regulations 1992, despite there
being a ‘minimum’ safe working temperature. This needs to be urgently
addressed as exposure to extreme heat can be a contributory factor to a
range of health conditions (Glaser et al., 2016) as well as impact upon
productivity.
4.5. Is there a geography to UK heatwave research?
Yes, not only does a discrepancy exist in the amount of heatwave
research conducted in different regions of the UK but this discrepancy is
also mirrored in the formulation and/or implementation of ofcial
Government policies and plans (Khare et al., 2015). England is the only
region of the UK that has a heatwave plan, and it focuses only on health
(Met Ofce, 2020). Despite the UK’s latest climate projections showing
that heatwave will increase in frequency, severity and duration across
all UK regions, the level of research and policy development does not
follow these concerns. No research met our criteria for heatwaves policy
and management in Northern Ireland. This is concerning because
without an evidential base for policy at best the urgency of the problem
will remain low and at worst it will remain an ‘invisible risk’.
This result may be related to legacy as heatwave events have his-
torically been rare in the UK and institutional fragmentation introduced
through devolution – where each country controls how they are gov-
erned and the policy they prioritise – has impeded centralised planning
and action This is important because heatwaves do not observe
administrative boundaries: they are borderless. Yet the creation of the
Heatwave Health Plan for England speaks to this inconsistency as only
some sectors, and some places, prepare for and adapt to heat risks.
Historically heatwaves spread across wide areas, for example the Eu-
ropean Heatwave in 2003, and the Russian Heatwave in 2010. But it is
key that all guidance on heat is developed to avoid patchiness in pro-
vision and response (e.g. WMO and WHO, 2015).
5. Conclusion
Despite scholars highlighting the importance of planning for, and
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Environmental Science and Policy 116 (2021) 1–7
6
adapting to, the impacts of heatwaves in the UK (Environmental Audit
Committee, 2018; Howarth et al., 2019; Public Health England, 2014),
our research shows that the evidence base available to decision-makers
is limited. Where evidence does exist, it is accompanied by a research
bias. That is, the vast majority of studies focus on health risks or infra-
structure. Other at-risk sectors, such as transport, energy, water and
food, which are just as important to the functioning of our everyday lives
receive considerably less attention. Risks posed by heatwaves are rarely
limited to a single sector but cut across different sectors in both pre-
dictable and unpredictable ways. Efforts to formulate, and in turn,
implement heatwave policies can encounter problems as Government
departments have different mandates, priorities, and inuence, and as a
result, institutional responsibilities become fragmented and/or deferred
(Environmental Audit Committee, 2018).
Our research also found that the heatwave evidence base varies
geographically. Nearly all the studies focus on England, with Scotland
and Wales receiving only a small amount of attention and Northern
Ireland ignored altogether. Likewise, the ofcial Government policy
and/or plan for managing heatwaves focuses on just England. Yet
heatwaves do not observe administrative boundaries. Without a rich,
robust and diverse evidence base, the risk of maladaptation and poor
coping strategies could increase on a regional basis. A major concern,
therefore, is that heatwaves become an ‘invisible risk’ for policymakers.
A lack of evidence, and inconsistencies within that evidence base, can
serve to deprioritise the seriousness of heatwave risks and the urgency of
policy action. For instance, 892 excess deaths were attributed to the
UK’s 2019 heatwaves whereas 11 deaths were ascribed to oods in the
same year yet the evidence base and managerial resources for heatwaves
is tiny in comparison to ood risk.
Unless the problem of ‘silo thinking’ in the way in which Government
policy is formulated and/or implemented is urgently addressed, and the
research community broadens the scope of studies to consider other at-
risk sectors, the connections between those sectors, and actively seeks to
ll gaps in the knowledge base between regions, then heatwaves will
remain at worst an ‘invisible risk’ amongst policymakers or at best a
niche debate between healthcare and building professionals. Answers on
how to tackle these challenges may already exist but require more
interdisciplinary thinking and commitment. Future research should
focus on bringing insights from practitioners, local communities, and the
grey literature together with scholarly research to provide a fully
rounded picture on heatwave research so that policymakers can be
better informed and supported when making decisions.
CRediT authorship contribution statement
Chloe Brimicombe: Conceptualization, Formal analysis, Investiga-
tion, Resources, Writing - original draft, Visualization. James J. Porter:
Conceptualization, Methodology, Validation, Writing - review & editing.
Claudia Di Napoli: Resources, Writing - review & editing. Florian
Pappenberger: Writing - review & editing. Rosalind Cornforth:
Writing - review & editing. Celia Petty: Writing - review & editing.
Hannah L. Cloke: Supervision, Writing - review & editing.
Declaration of Competing Interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing nancial
interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to inuence
the work reported in this paper.
Acknowledgement
Chloe Brimicombe, wants to thank the SCENARIO DTP, ECMWF and
the University of Reading for their continued support. All the authors,
thank the reviewers for their invaluable advice.
Appendix A. Supplementary data
Supplementary material related to this article can be found, in the
online version, at doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envsci.2020.10.021.
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