Using buildings for flood protection

Science Daily: Buildings, car parks and roads could, alongside their 'regular' functions, have a role to play in protecting the rest of the city from flooding. According to researcher Bianca Stalenberg, this concept could be very useful for the Dutch cities along the River Rhine, for example. Stalenberg will defend her PhD thesis on this subject on Wednesday 8 September at Delft university of Technology (TU Delft, The Netherlands).

Climate change and, more especially, the economic expansion of the last few decades have meant that existing flood protection systems in a number of cities along the River Rhine are now in need of improvement. At the same time, riverfronts remain subject to changing urban trends and the wishes of the local population and policy makers. 'Unfortunately, this makes improving flood protection and redeveloping urban riverfronts very complicated', says PhD candidate Bianca Stalenberg. 'My research poses the question of whether it is possible to combine the urban functions of buildings with that of flood protection.'

This is indeed possible, according to Stalenberg. It all depends on the concept of AFD (Adaptable Flood Defences). Buildings, car parks and roads can be designed in such a way that they can protect the urban area behind them from flooding, alongside their regular urban functions. These innovative construction techniques can also be adapted to the circumstances in the long term. This will enable flood protection systems to take account of external influences such as climate change and economic development.

…Stalenberg has also developed a decision-support model, the Urban Flood Protection Matrix (UFPM). This tool can assist water authorities and municipal government when it comes to the development (or redevelopment) of riverfronts and the improvement of urban flood defences by combining these two elements….

An aerial view of the Rhine and Ginsheim, shot by Hansueli Krapf, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license