Building Resilience: How Climate Change Redefines Construction Strategy

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Building Resilience: How Climate Change Redefines Construction Strategy

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Not long ago the concept of global warming was a part of speculation in the scholarly field of climatology; now it is reality. With rising global temperatures, unpredictable weather patterns, and an increase in natural disasters, the construction industry faces a pressing challenge: on ways of achieving that personal and organizational flexibility in the modern environment. 

Keeping in view the psychological effects of climate change the construction industry has to find ways of how it can build structures that can effectively withstand the changing climate conditions. In this work, the author aims at establishing how climate change is impacting the construction industry, and how it is leading to increased innovation in the construction sector as well as change in the manner in which structures are constructed and maintained.  

The Growing Impact of Climate Change on Construction:

Climate change impacts are too numerous and widespread. It is available from the frequency of heat waves, sea-level rises to affect coastal cities to the increased intensity of extreme weather patterns to affect inland areas. Natural disasters such as hurricanes, floods, wildfires, and droughts, which used to occur rarely, are now a frequent occurrence and this year alone they are estimated to be costing billions of dollars in infrastructural damage alone. This has shifted the focus to the importance of the outlook of construction which has brought the issue of resilience to the table.

Houses and other structures that are built with the past climatic conditions can in fact not cope with the current severe conditions. Where resilience is needed is obvious, but what resilience means and how it can be achieved demands a radical reconstruction of practice, of the technologies of building and of future thinking.

Redefining Resilience: Moving Beyond Strength

Resilience is much easier to perceive via the packages of its components as a physical body that can resist on a certain level winds, earthquakes or floods. What resilience means in contrast to strength is quite bigger in scope. In addition to bearing these characteristics, a resilient building is flexibly designed, resource efficient, and energy efficient as well. A structure has to withstand a storm and do fine in ever-varying conditions and also minimally impact on the environment. This has brought many developments that encouraged the use of appropriate building materials that will have the capacity to withstand the effects of climate change.

Adaptive Design: A Key to Resilience

One of the most important changes in construction strategies by the construction companies is that of adaptive construction. In the current environment, flexibility is the key: structures, or rather, possibilities must be ready to come into being in a great number of situations. This means buildings are still constructed in a manner that allows them to be modified over time whether for energy or for climate change.

This has been adopted in a number of ways such as construction of raised structures as a way of avoiding flood prone areas. Other phenomena affecting certain cities are sea-level rise in New York, Miami and New Orleans, for example. To this, architects and engineers have devised measures of constructing buildings that are about stilts or platforms such that flooding on the initial levels does not lead to major losses. In the same manner, designing the buildings with the flexible foundations thus optimally enables movements to undertake flooding or rising water levels.

In the region affected with wildfires, a flexible design entails the application of materials that will withstand fire such as metallic roofing and fiber-cement cladding. Some changes are also being observed in landscaping around buildings in an effort to contain fire—growing of fire-resistant vegetation and the establishment of a space around homes that is easy to defend against fire is now being practiced.

Sustainable Materials: Building for the Future

Other construction materials do the job but they worsen environmental issues that confront our planet today. This is evident through a specific sub sector of construction such as concrete production as it constitutes approximately 7.5% of total carbon footprint. Owing to escalating climate change impacts the industry is shifting towards more sustainable solutions that also add longevity to the building.

One such development is cross laminated timber, or CLT which as a building material is not only sustainable but also very strong. CLT is fire resistant and provides good thermal properties, that is it is suitable for use in warm and cold environments respectively. Further, it can store carbon thus reducing the total carbon cycle of a building.

Recycled materials are also being adopted in the industry. Waste is being turned to building resources through recycled materials; these include plastic bricks; concrete that has been combined with substances like fly ash; and recycled denim insulation.

Net-Zero Energy Buildings: Efficiency as a Resilience Strategy

Energy efficiency, besides being part of the climate change mitigation initiative, has to be regarded primarily as a resilience-oriented concept. It will only take time before temperatures in different locations go higher; therefore, structures must be constructed to have lower power consumption to regulate occupants’ comfort. The solution that is being popularized is the Net-zero energy buildings (NZEBs) that create as much energy as they use.

NZEBs use renewable energy products, which include solar products, together with efficient energy technologies such as energy efficient windows, LEDs and efficient insulation. Such structures can effectively operate during periods when power supply is interrupted such as during heat waves or storms that may affect the power generators.

Also, there is the continued rise in the application of smart technologies in the creation of more robust structures. The basic measurements such as temperature, humidity, energy usage can also be measured and controlled through the sensors to improve performance, productivity and save energy. Used in conjunction with renewable energy systems these technologies provide for the business continuity of a building during climate disruption.

Water Management: Preparing for Droughts and Floods

Water management is still another important factor where one needs to be more resilient while constructing buildings. Global warming is having a very significant impact on water sources and distribution since some areas are experiencing severe shortages of water while in the other extreme, some areas are being flooded beyond their tolerance limits within no time. Adaptive design for the built environment implies the inclusion of measures to address both ends of the spectrum.

Where water shortages are experienced due to recurrent drought, rainwater harvesting initiatives and greywater recycling are few of the approaches which can help scale down the demand of water to councils. These systems involve the collection and recycling of water for use in other applications other than for drinking which include; watering of landscape and use in cleaning toilets among others and they prove beneficial in periods of water scarcity.

On the other hand, in flood prone areas, green infrastructure which include permeable pavements, green roofs and bioswales enable the management of storm water allowing the water to seepage into the ground rather than flooding the drainage systems. These solutions not only decrease flood risk but also ‘green’ the building by improving indoor air quality, and minimizing urban heat island effect.

Designing for Social Resilience: Community-Centered Construction

We also briefly touched on the topic of the resilience in construction that has to do not only with the constructions themselves but also with the communities they are provided for. This means that through the contestation of social resilience it becomes easier to understand the construction of infrastructures in supporting the health and safety of communities. Reconstruction and rebuilding usually underscore the requirements of such places to be built with great focus on the needs of such communities. 

Structures that have dual use, such as schools that can be used as a temporary shelter during disasters are very essential. In the same manner, incorporation of neighborhood-level energy systems like micro-grids to cater for necessary consumer services when a grid collapses will make communities a little more energy secure.

The Future of Resilient Construction:

The problem of climate change is not only an environmental problem of the future, but rather an urgent problem of the present. The construction industry leads this effort and is challenged to transform the way it practices to accommodate uncertainty in the future. Through adapting a design-for-Climate-Change and integrating use of sustainable materials, efficient energy use technology and intelligent use of water, structures can be developed that are strong enough to withstand effects of climate change hence being a positive step towards a sustainable future. 

It’s for this reason that building for resilience is best understood as an ethical task rather than a mere engineering problem. For construction innovation to go to the next level, the right decisions are made today to give the future generation a built environment that can be sustainable in the face of crisis.

 

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