Implications of future climate change for stone deterioration

Climate change over the next 100 years is likely to have a range of direct and indirect impacts on many natural and physical environments, including the built environment. Important influences on the built environment will include alterations in temperature, precipitation, extreme climatic events, soil conditions, groundwater and sea level. Some processes of building stone decay will be accelerated or worsened by climate change, whilst others will be retarded. The impacts on individual processes can be conceptualized, but it is difficult to assess or quantify the overall risk posed by climate change given currently available data. Linking global-scale changes to the response of individual walls or buildings remains a challenge. Overall changes in decay rates could also be related to climatic change. As an example downscaled climate predictions, knowledge of stock at risk and long-term decay rates can be used to assess the future of building stone decay in the UK. Using the UK Climatic Impacts Programme’s (UKCIP98) regional climate change projections an increasing NW-SE climatic gradient is predicted, which should enhance chemical weathering of silicate building materials in the NW and increase crystallization damage of limestones in the SE.