CSA Birmingham
Birmingham Metropolitan Area
Birmingham, Central England, UK
Birmingham is the UK’s second city, with a population of 1.1 million people and increasing. It is also a city of young people – 28% of Birmingham’s population is under the age of 20, and 36% is under the age of 25. The population is diverse with 57% identifying as non-white British (2011).
Birmingham is divided into 69 wards (administrative divisions of the city) and many of the wards are in the top 10% of the most deprived wards in England. Birmingham faces an urgent housing crisis with 40-50,000 homes required in the next few years.
The main climate challenges affecting the city are urban heat island effect and surface water flooding. Other challenges include fluvial flooding and poor air quality.
Birmingham was declared a biophilic city in 2014, meaning greens space is put at the heart of its planning. It has over 1000 green spaces and has maintained its status as a Tree City of the World for five years. Access to those green spaces, however, is not distributed equally and for those living in the most deprived wards their green spaces are not always good quality.
Could increasing nature-based solutions in Birmingham simultaneously help the city adapt to surface water flooding and extreme heat?
The Birmingham Forest Masterplan (2021 – 2051) sets out a plan to establish more trees in the city, increasing, diversifying and protecting the urban tree canopy cover to be more climate-resilient and to support climate adaptation. Birmingham has over 1.1 million trees and some vegetation mapping has been completed.
The University of Birmingham-led Climate Risk and Vulnerability Assessment (CRVA) shows that some areas of Birmingham are more at risk to climate change than others. A CRVA involves complex mapping taking 15 different factors into account and layering this geographical, social and environmental data including pluvial flooding.
Knowing where the most vulnerable communities live and work and further developing vegetation mapping could support climate adaptation for surface water flooding and urban heat island by enabling informed planning and decision making. Consider the lifespan of a tree. They take time to grow, and it is the larger trees that provide the greatest opportunities for adapting to climate change. Being able to know now, what will be needed in the future ensures trees can be placed in the right place so when the time is right they will be in place and large enough to provide the benefits required. Knowing now where trees are is also helpful as data can inform decision making such as where to focus street gully cleaning operations prior to forecasted storm events to ensure drains are not blocked by fallen leaves.
The University of Birmingham is ranked in the top 100 universities globally. It ranks highly among employers seeking to recruit graduates and is an enviably diverse community, with staff and students from Birmingham and the West Midlands, across the UK and around the world.
The University is committed to making a positive economic, social, and cultural contribution through education and research. It works with industry, business, universities, and governments worldwide to improve areas such as rail engineering, air and water pollution, climate change, and social inequality. The University’s Institute of Forest Research (BIFoR) leads one of the largest climate change experiments in the world – the BIFoR Free-Air Carbon Dioxide Enrichment (FACE) Facility.
- Birmingham and Black Country Wildlife Trust
- Birmingham City Council (highways, public health, ecology
- Birmingham Institute of Forest Research at the University of Birmingham
- Birmingham Open Spaces Forum (BOSF)
- Birmingham TreePeople
- Birmingham Voluntary Services Council
- Centre for Urban Wellbeing at the University of Birmingham
- City of Nature
- Civic Square
- ClimateEd Birmingham
- Environment Agency
- Local Resilience Forum
- Natural England
- Severn Trent Water
- Sustainability West Midlands
- The Met Office
- Transport for West Midlands
- University of Birmingham Institute of Sustainability and Climate Action
- West Midlands Combined Authority