A call for tougher standards for the built enivronment

A press release from the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction: A UNISDR private sector champion today called for the high standards that are typically applied to major infrastructure projects to be the benchmark for the majority of urban areas that are residential and home to small businesses.

Mr. Aris Papadopoulos, retired CEO for Titan America and the first Chair of UNISDR’s Private Sector Advisory Group, said the areas where the biggest proportion of people live and where the majority of smaller enterprises are located are generally the most exposed and vulnerable locations.

“The ‘built environment’ is where we spend 95 per cent of our lives,” Mr Papadopoulos said. “And it is in residential areas and commercial districts for SMEs (small-medium siz
ed enterprises) where 80 per cent of destruction from disasters occur.

“Unfortunately, building codes present the lowest common denominator and they are often not enforced as well as they are when it comes to larger infrastructure. But let’s look at what the automobile industry did in the 1960s: they embarked on a great change towards safety for cars. Why do we not have the same radical change in our approach to the built environment?”

Mr. Papadopoulos was speaking at the ‘Business and Private Sector: Investing in Resilient Infrastructure’ session at the Third UN World Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction.

He pointed to ‘Five Visions for a Resilient Future’ unveiled at the World Conference by the UNISDR Private Sector Partnership (PSP), which he said was a roadmap to “move from disaster reaction to resilience pro-action”.

The vision comprises the following five elements: strong public private partnerships; resilience in the built environment; risk-sensitive investments and accounting; positive cycle of reinforcement for a resilient society; and private sector risk disclosure....

High water on the Danube near Vienna in 2013, shot by VIEX - Ernest Niedermann, Wikimedia Commons,  under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license

Bringing “smart” building technology to Jamaica's shantytowns

Jewel Fraser in IPS: Buildings are among the largest consumers of earth’s natural resources. According to the Sustainable Buildings and Climate Initiative, they use about 40 percent of global energy and 25 percent of global water, while emitting about a third of greenhouse gas emissions.

Anthony Clayton, a professor of sustainable development at the University of the West Indies, Jamaica, says those statistics make buildings vital to developing resilience to climate change and to reducing pockets of entrenched poverty in the Caribbean region.  “At the moment, most of the buildings in Jamaica are very energy inefficient with very expensive electricity that reduces the level of disposable incomes, which is one of the factors acting as a break on the economy. If we build to a higher standard of energy efficiency,” the country will also be more resilient to climate change, he added.

Clayton and his colleague, Professor Tara Dasgupta, are currently working on the prototype of a smart building whose key features would be “optimal sustainability and efficiency” with particular attention given to water efficiency, renewable energies, materials and resources, and indoor environmental quality.

The proposed “net zero energy” building, which is the first of its kind in the region, is now in the design phase. The University of the West Indies’ Institute for Sustainable Development (ISD), where Clayton holds the Alcan chair, is working in collaboration with the Global Environment Facility and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) on the seven-million-dollar research and building project.

Clayton, who is also a member of several advisory groups serving the Caribbean Regional Negotiating Machinery, the UNEP Division of Technology, Industry and Economics, and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, told IPS that a major hazard of the current housing stock in Jamaica, in light of climate change, is its proliferation of informal settlements...

Photo by Rennett Stowe, Wikimedia Commons via Flicker, under the Creative Commons 2.0 license 

Automatic building mapping could help emergency responders

Larry Hardesty in MIT News: MIT researchers have built a wearable sensor system that automatically creates a digital map of the environment through which the wearer is moving. The prototype system, described in a paper slated for the Intelligent Robots and Systems conference in Portugal next month, is envisioned as a tool to help emergency responders coordinate disaster response.

In experiments conducted on the MIT campus, a graduate student wearing the sensor system wandered the halls, and the sensors wirelessly relayed data to a laptop in a distant conference room. Observers in the conference room were able to track the student’s progress on a map that sprang into being as he moved.

Connected to the array of sensors is a handheld pushbutton device that the wearer can use to annotate the map. In the prototype system, depressing the button simply designates a particular location as a point of interest. But the researchers envision that emergency responders could use a similar system to add voice or text tags to the map — indicating, say, structural damage or a toxic spill.

“The operational scenario that was envisioned for this was a hazmat situation where people are suited up with the full suit, and they go in and explore an environment,” says Maurice Fallon, a research scientist in MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, and lead author on the new paper. “The current approach would be to textually summarize what they had seen afterward — ‘I went into this room on the left, I saw this, I went into the next room,’ and so on. We want to try to automate that.”...

The prototype sensor included a stripped-down Microsoft Kinect camera (top) and a laser rangefinder (bottom), which looks something like a camera lens seen side-on. Photo: Patrick Gillooly

Expert rejects shift of Australia's cyclone zone

Bill Hoffman in the Sunshine Coast Daily (Australia): The planned shift of the east coast cyclone zone south to cover the Sunshine Coast and Caboolture was a politically motivated exercise that had generated considerable cynicism from the engineering community. That is the opinion of Dr George Walker who wrote the post-Cyclone Tracy engineering report that reset Australian building codes.

He said current standards, where new Coast buildings were required to be able to withstand a category three cyclone, were reasonable The Australian Building Codes Board is considering a draft report that recommends the Cyclone Region C boundary, which starts near Cairns and ends south of Bundaberg, be changed to take in the Coast and Caboolture.

Builders fear that would add up to $15,000 to the cost of a new home although this estimate has been questioned by some engineering experts who say the actual component costs would be significantly less. Dr Walker, of Mapleton, who has studied tropical cyclones and their effects on building for the past 40 years, said the zone change appeared to be a purely political exercise by a government wanting to be seen to be doing something about global warming.

No climate-change sceptic – he is a peer science reviewer for the International Panel on Climate Change – Dr Walker remains highly sceptical of the cost-benefit of the zone shift which he says stops conveniently short of the state’s capital where it would have the greatest impact on disaster mitigation. He said too much emphasis was being applied to upper range impacts of climate change….

Torn shade sails in Townsville after Cyclone Yasi, shot by Rob and Stephanie Levy, Wikimedia Commons via Flickr, under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license

Standing up to the surge

Beth Daley in the Boston Globe: In the sunshine, Johnson & Wales University’s new Cuisinart Center for Culinary Excellence looks sleek and sharp; it’s a light-filled space on the Narragansett Bay campus. In a hurricane, a piece of the building may wash away — by design. Glass panels and a brick facade placed on the ground floor by the Cambridge architects Tsoi/Kobus & Associates would give way if floodwaters slam into the building.

The breakaway walls would allow water to flow freely past columns holding up the rest of the 82,000-square-foot building, ensuring it isn’t damaged by the ocean’s force. Nearby buildings would also be protected, because destructive floodwaters would not be redirected by any fixed walls.

Such designs have long been common for homes at the beach, where storm surges are so frequent that ground floors typically consist of little more than storage space or a garage. Now, architects are beginning to adopt them for far larger commercial and industrial buildings along the coast as climate change causes sea levels to rise.

“We were able to take advantage of creative construction,’’ said Chris Placco, vice president of facilities for Johnson & Wales. “And we basically built the building up on stilts.’’

...Boston is investing heavily in ways to adapt to and prepare for rising seas, including requiring large projects to consider climate change in their construction planning, said James Hunt, the city’s chief of environmental and energy services….

A storm surge during Hurricane Eloise, via NOAA

Adapting UK buildings to cope with climate change

Process and Control Today: The Technology Strategy Board is to invest £2.4 million to help building design teams develop strategies for buildings in the UK so that they are better able to adapt to the changing climate. As part of its work supporting innovations that will help to address some of society’s key sustainability challenges, the Technology Strategy Board is to award contracts to twenty six companies to develop climate adaptation strategies for their buildings.

The adaptation strategies to be developed will cover both planned buildings that are now at the design stage and large non-domestic buildings that are about to be refurbished. Iain Gray, Chief Executive of the Technology Strategy Board, said: “This investment is a fine example of the Technology Strategy Board supporting innovation that develops sustainable solutions for society while at the same time creating new markets for the UK economy. Innovation is crucial to British businesses and through investments such as this we are working to help businesses take advantage of future market opportunities.

“We are already designing and constructing buildings that use less energy and reduce CO2 emissions. The challenge now is to make sure our buildings are resilient and adaptable to the climate change that we will see over the coming decades.”…

Tower and moat of Caerlaverock Castle, shot by Damnonii, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license

Climate change will stress northern construction

Richard Gilbert in the Daily Commercial News: Construction and engineering companies in northern Canada need to change the way they design and build to combat the effects of climate change, according to a federal advisory body. “Our research found that northerners are concerned that a warmer climate is already having an effect on the region’s infrastructure,” said the report titled True North: Adapting Infrastructure to Climate Change in Northern Canada.

“We heard that changing precipitation patterns, including changes in snow, rain, and freezing rain conditions; permafrost degradation; flooding and stream flow changes; sea-ice loss and coastal erosion and other climate-related changes are compromising the integrity of transportation systems, buildings, communications, energy projects, and containment structures for storing waste from mining operations.”

The National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy produced the report that considers the impact of climate change on the northern economy and its supporting infrastructure. The plan is to develop strategies for adaptation and sustainable economic development.

The report said one of the biggest challenges for engineers that design, build and maintain the physical infrastructure in Canada’s North is permafrost and other frozen systems.

The experience of these engineers has created a variety of practices and technologies adapted to cold climates. For example, frozen ground provides a stable surface for buildings, roads and airstrips, pipelines, transmission towers, and for waste containment. The choice of a shallow or deep foundation and overall design is a function of both infrastructure loads and thermal conditions of the ground….

Power transmission towers at Northwest Territories Power Corporation (NTPC) power plant, Yellowknife, Northwest Territories, Canada. Shot by WinterCity296

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

Engineer lambastes Hamilton, Ontario for Red Hill Valley Parkway flooding

Jeremy Grimaldi in the Spec.com via the Hamilton Spectator (Canada): A highly regarded engineer has slammed the City of Hamilton's decision to build a highway through the area's last greenspace "come hell or high water." Professor Brian Baetz, chair of civil engineering at McMaster, said the engineers behind the Red Hill Valley Parkway do not deserve the blame for continued flooding that put lives at risk in the valley during last week's flooding. He likened the project to "building a gazebo on quicksand."

"They effectively built a road on a flood plain," he said. "To be frank, I lay this at the feet of the city." The former member of Friends of Red Hill Valley said, if the city had planned the project properly, it would have requested emergency planning for a bigger one in 500-year storm rather than planning for a one in 100-year storm, which is what was used.

"We knew almost everything about climate change when this was built," said the sustainability expert. "If you know that climate change is coming, the city should have sat down with experts to ensure a huge safety net was incorporated into the plans, I'm talking about a 500-year storm."

In an article published last month in the Canadian Consultancy Engineer publication, Ron Scheckenberger, the project manager of the Red Hill Valley Parkway drainage system, said: "The drainage system for the parkway performed exactly as designed -- it flooded exactly where it was predicted to, in the amount that it was predicted to. "So the question remains: 'Should expressways be designed to higher or different standards?'

"Only time will tell. With the spectre of climate change on the horizon, there will need to be close attention to standards, and analytical tools will need to keep pace."...

Red Hill Valley Parkway, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada; looking south from the Greenhill overpass, shot by Whpq, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 3.0 License

How to make a wave behave

USDA Agricultural Research Service: In the lower Mississippi Delta, farmers often build ponds for aquaculture and for storing surface water to irrigate crops. But erosion generated by wind-driven waves can reduce reservoir levee widths by a foot every year, and repairs can be needed as soon as 5 years after a reservoir is completed.

It’s not simple—or cheap—to patch up a reservoir with silt loam levees that can stretch over a mile and that are 25 to 30 feet wide. The costs can average $3 per foot, which adds up to around $15,000 per structure. People have tried to stabilize the levees with tires, construction materials, or vegetation, but hydraulic engineer Daniel Wren is experimenting with another approach. “We wanted to see if we could find a way to cut down on the erosive energy hitting the levees,” he says.

Wren, who works at the Agricultural Research Service’s Watershed Physical Processes Research Unit in Oxford, Mississippi, partnered with ARS hydraulic engineer Carlos Alonso (now retired) and University of Mississippi research associate Yavuz Ozeren for his research. The team gathered data about wind and wave dynamics from a 70-acre irrigation reservoir in Arkansas. Then they took their data into the lab and designed several wave barriers that they tested in a 63-foot-long wave flume.

Lab results indicated that a floating barrier held in place by two rows of pilings would provide the most effective embankment protection from wave action (see diagram). The barrier was made of a 9½-inch-diameter tube that was attached to a 4¾-inch-diameter tube with a 24-inch length of smaller tubing. Since it was confined between the two rows of pilings, the barrier was able to rise and fall with fluctuating water levels—unlike a barrier tethered to the bottom of the pond, which might end up below the water surface as reservoir levels rise.

The team found that this two-tube barrier was able to dissipate 75 percent of wave energy for waves within the design range before they washed against the levees. The waves lost some of their force when they broke against the first tube and then lost even more energy as they broke against the second tube....

Illustration from the USDA website

How white roofs could have a green impact

David A. Fahrenthold in the San Francisco Chronicle via the Washington Post: Could climate change be staved off by making the United States look like the set of "Mamma Mia!"?
That was suggested in a recent talk by Energy Secretary Steven Chu - although, because he was speaking to Nobel laureates, he did not mention the ABBA musical set in the Greek Islands. He said that global warming could be slowed by a low-tech idea that has nothing to do with coal plants or solar panels: white roofs.

Making roofs white "changes the reflectivity ... of the Earth, so the sunlight comes in, it's reflected back into space," Chu said. "This is something very simple that we can do immediately," he said later.

…But if anybody is seriously considering a global whitewash, "simple" and "immediate" are probably not words that come to mind. "I don't think that it could ever be done at a sufficient scale," said Ken Caldeira, a climate scientist at the Carnegie Institution in Stanford. "It's hard enough, in many of the cities of the world, to keep the streets swept, much less to keep the city reflective."…

White roofs on the island of Santorini in Greece, shot by zaragkito

Civil engineering's role in reducing the risk of climate change

The American Surveyor: As leaders of the civil engineering profession gathered in St. John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador to discuss the challenges and risks faced by coastal communities worldwide at the 2009 Triennial Conference, the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), the Canadian Society for Civil Engineering (CSCE) and the Institute of Civil Engineers (ICE) jointly signed an agreement on Civil Engineering and Climate Change. Based on the belief that “substantial reductions in greenhouse gas emissions are required to reduce the risk of climate change” and that “the effects of climate change include reduced access to drinking water supplies, increased exposure to flooding and the threat to flood security in large parts of Africa, Asia and Latin America,” the agreement outlines civil engineers’ role in the solution, as well as key engineering and public policy priorities.

“Climate change is posing serious risks to the infrastructure systems that support our global economy, and more importantly, the ability of communities worldwide to prosper and thrive,” said ASCE President D. Wayne Klotz, P.E., D.WRE, F.ASCE. “As civil engineers, it is our duty to assure the performance of those critical systems, and reducing greenhouse gas emissions and complying with the principles of sustainable development must play a major role in our efforts to mitigate the risks we face.”

“Developing technologies to mitigate the impacts of climate change is a challenge for all engineers,” said CSCE President Gordon Jin, P.Eng., FCSCE. “This agreement sends a clear signal to our respective policy makers that civil engineers are at the forefront of this crucial issue, and highlights the need for public policy priorities to address this for the good of our planet and its inhabitants.”

….Civil engineers are central to the success of the infrastructure networks that support our society and global economy. To address the foreseeable climate change impacts on and need for resilience in those networks, design, construction and operation must be changed. To address this crucial issue, the engineering priorities outlined in the agreement focus on two areas, mitigation and adaptation….

Archimedes and his lever, an engraving from Mechanics Magazine published in London in 1824

Corps of Engineers prepares to fortify New Orleans pump stations

NOLA.com: Several dozen pump stations in Orleans and Jefferson parishes will be bulked up to better withstand major storms after $340 million worth of "stormproofing" that also adds redundant power sources. The goal is to prevent a repeat of Hurricane Katrina, when Jefferson Parish President Aaron Broussard evacuated pumping stations to protect workers, a decision that outraged many residents whose homes flooded.

After Katrina, Jefferson Parish began stormproofing by building stand-alone safe houses adjacent to certain pump stations. Then the Army Corps of Engineers jumped in, adding generators at the Sewerage & Water Board's largest station in the city and building more safe houses in Jefferson.

Now the corps has laid out the rest of its far-reaching plan, developed in concert with local water managers, to fortify and install more equipment at as many as 37 stations in the two parishes, as well as at S&WB electrical facilities. The details are proposed in a pair of environmental documents posted on a corps Web site for public review and response. If approved as proposed later this summer, most of the work would be finished by late 2011, though a few projects could last into 2013, an official said.

Congress appropriated stormproofing money for Orleans and Jefferson after Katrina, but it gave nothing for similar work in St. Bernard and Plaquemines parishes. And it's an exclusion that worries officials responsible for helping to foster regionwide protection.

…The corps estimates that $204 million will be spent in Orleans and $136 million in Jefferson, but officials don't know whether that will cover everything proposed….

One of the pumping stations along Broad Street, this one at the intersection of the old Carondelet Canal. Neighborhood youths ride bicycles down Broad. Notice they have dust masks, as the area is still filled with debris, dust, and mold from Hurricane Katrina related flooding. Photo by Infrogmation (who's taken many photos of his home, New Orleans), early November 2005. Wikimedia Commons, under Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 License

Self-healing concrete for safer, more durable infrastructure

University of Michigan News: A concrete material developed at the University of Michigan can heal itself when it cracks. No human intervention is necessary—just water and carbon dioxide. A handful of drizzly days would be enough to mend a damaged bridge made of the new substance. Self-healing is possible because the material is designed to bend and crack in narrow hairlines rather than break and split in wide gaps, as traditional concrete behaves.

“It’s like if you get a small cut on your hand, your body can heal itself. But if you have a large wound, your body needs help. You might need stitches. We’ve created a material with such tiny crack widths that it takes care of the healing by itself. Even if you overload it, the cracks stay small,” said Victor Li, the E. Benjamin Wylie Collegiate Professor of Civil Engineering and a professor of Materials Science and Engineering.

A paper about the material is published online in Cement and Concrete Research. It will be printed in a forthcoming edition of the journal.

In Li’s lab, self-healed specimens recovered most if not all of their original strength after researchers subjected them to a 3 percent tensile strain. That means they stretched the specimens to 3 percent beyond their initial size. It’s the equivalent of stretching a 100-foot piece an extra three feet—enough strain to severely deform metal or catastrophically fracture traditional concrete….

Three kinds of concrete -- cinderblock, mortar and cast concrete. Shot by Polyparadigm

Climate change means review of heating and cooling needed

H&V News (UK): Building services engineers need to start preparing for the impact of climate change according to a new report by the Institute of Mechanical Engineers. Climate Change: Adapting to the Inevitable looks at how approaches to energy, building water, infrastructure and transport should change in response to the expected rise in temperatures.

One of the key arguments is that engineers must review their design parameters: “Resilience to extreme weather events will also need to be reviewed. “The current peak design data used by engineers when designing internal heating, ventilation and cooling solutions for buildings will need to be reviewed to reflect future scenarios.

“The structural design parameters will also need updating regularly to cope with predictions for increased flooding, subsidence, effects of heat on materials and resistance to rain penetration.” Master planning to stop heat building up in urban centres is also an issue. The report said: “Buildings adaptation is perhaps the area where most consideration of future climate change has already been made.

…“The understanding of street layout, building orientation, massing and location is critical in minimising overheating in and around buildings, and reducing risks of flooding. Lessons can be learnt from developments in existing hot climates and recent advances in the understanding of zero-carbon master planning from projects such as Dongtan in China.”

London skyline from the south bank of the Thames . The Swiss Re "gherkin" and the White Tower can be seen in the background. Shot by Italo-Europeo, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License

Britain should prepare for massive loss of landmass, warn engineers

Guardian (UK): Ministers should prepare the British people to "adapt" in the longer term to a landscape devastated by climate change, including the possible abandonment of parts of London and East Anglia, a leading industry body warns today. Action to curb carbon emissions is failing, so the UK should immediately change the way it designs buildings, transport and energy infrastructure in preparation for aworld potentially characterised by extreme heat and high sea levels, argues the Institution of Mechanical Engineers (IMechE) in a new report.

The institute said it wanted its latest research to provoke serious action for future planning "not just for the sake of our planet but also for the human race. Yes, we need to mitigate [emissions] – but the evidence shows this is not working alone." Even with significant global commitment to avert climate change it could be many centuries before average temperatures can be stabilised, says the document, Climate Change: Adapting to the Inevitable?, which was described by environmentalists as a "wake-up call" for government.

IMechE said that sea levels are predicted to rise by 2m by 2250 and 7m by the end of that century. "A seven-metre rise in sea levels would impact on vast areas of the UK, including parts of London which border the Thames,[such as] Canary Wharf, Chelsea and Westminster, all of which would need to be abandoned," the report argues….

"The Pool from London Bridge: Morning" - lithograph by W. Parrott, 1841

Urban poverty, climate change and built environment

Huraera Jabeen in the Daily Star (Bangladesh): Bangladesh is considered highly vulnerable climate change and climate variability. Various predictions of sea level rise puts 55% of its population on the threat of inundation. It will affect infrastructures including water systems, housing and settlements, transport networks, utilities, and industry.

….Urban poverty in Bangladesh is evident in all the towns and cities. It is estimated that 43% of urban households live below the poverty line among which 23% are considered extreme poor. Around 35% of the population of six major cities live in slums which cover only 4% of their land area with limited or no access to services. Fighting poverty in urban area requires a multi faceted approach of economic, social, cultural, political as well as physical agenda.

…Designers of built environment can contribute in three areas for improving living environment for the urban poor: in building design; in settlement planning and design as well as in urban planning. Within these three areas they are to work with housing standards, environmental sustainability, economic affordability, structure as well as aesthetics for individual structures.

...Adaptation in built environment will have to emphasize exploring innovative measures affordable for the urban poor. Deriving a 'standard' can be an outcome of an interactive and spontaneous participatory and self mobilizing planning process. Bangladesh has experience on community based disaster management. There are enormous possibilities to explore how the built environment of the urban areas can be designed and improved to include the urban poor in city level development process. These can include how to invest in resilient infrastructure -- improving drainage, adequate disaster-safe housing, increasing access to services such as health, water and sanitation, increased security of tenure for the informal settlements etc….

Rush hour in Dhaka, shot by Soman, Wikimedia Commons, under Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 License

Insurers warn brittle buildings crumble under climate change

Courier Mail (Australia): Insurers have warned of constructing "increasingly brittle" buildings that will be more difficult to insure given the risk of extreme weather. It says existing building codes say nothing about the effect of hail on roofs and windows, and buildings only need to be constructed to a standard that prevents collapse under high winds rather than severe damage.

The Insurance Council has mounted a campaign to improve home building standards across the country, saying current laws fail to take into account the influence of climate change. The council has called on the Rudd Government to produce a "national construction code" to incorporate all building regulatory and compliance issues.

In a submission to the Government's review of the operations of building codes, the council insists there is no minimum requirement for the resilience of homes to natural hazards. It says the Government should introduce "uniform and formal regulation for a minimum level of property resilience to hazards".

Without such change "Australia will continue to produce increasingly brittle buildings that will be progressively more difficult for consumers to insure in an environment where the everyday risks of extreme hail, wind, fire and flood have increased", the submission states….

Hail storm damage, shot by quinn norton, Wikimedia Commons via Flickr, under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 License

London's overheating buildings and skyline must adapt to climate change

Media Newswire: The University of Reading's Meteorology Department is leading a major new project to help understand how London's existing and new buildings directly affect, and need to adapt to, climate change. ….The funding will create the Advanced Climate Technology Urban Atmospheric Laboratory (ACTUAL ), which will investigate the impact that buildings themselves have on London's changing climate. Results will be integrated directly into engineering and policy areas which impact on urban infrastructure.

Dr. Janet Barlow, the ACTUAL project leader from the University of Reading, said: "Most of the world's population lives in cities, which are already responsible for 80% of the world's carbon emissions. London's energy consumption soared during the 2003 heat wave as offices and public buildings switched on air conditioning systems across the city. Such extreme temperatures are predicted to be a regular occurrence by the 2050s, at which point 70% of our current buildings will still be around. They are not designed to function in what will be the equivalent of the current-day Mediterranean climate."

The initial five year project will use buildings such as the BT Tower to investigate sustainable adaptation of buildings to a warmer London climate. The research will focus on three areas: improving urban climate simulation, assessing the effect of building layout on city ventilation and developing tools to optimise urban renewable energy generation….

The BT Tower in London, shot by Mahlum, Wikimedia Commons

Houses fortified against disaster in Louisiana

Terra Daily: To promote safer construction in Louisiana, American National Property And Casualty Company (ANPAC) offers a 25 percent discount off the hurricane portion of a homeowners policy for homes built to the Fortifiedfor safer living standard. Homes must also meet other ANPAC underwriting requirements. ANPAC is an IBHS member company. ANPAC adopted the Fortified for safer living model after the Gulf Coast was devastated in 2005.

Louisiana System Built Homes marked the completion of the first Fortifiedfor safer living home built in the state of Louisiana with a ribbon-cutting ceremony. The home, at the Ponderosa Estates in Arnaudville, meets the Fortified requirements set by the Institute for Business and Home Safety (IBHS), a nonprofit research organization supported by the insurance industry to reduce property losses. In addition to earning the Fortified for safer living designation, all homes built by LASBH at its St. Martinville factory, are energy efficient, affordable, and have a higher standard of quality construction.

Fortified criteria raises a new homes overall resistance to natural disasters based on the hazards that the home will face where it is built. In Louisiana, Fortified homes:

-- are designed to withstand wind speeds 20 MPH above those set by the American Society of Civil Engineers;

-- have higher design pressure rated windows and doors, and in the southern portion of the state require impact-resistant opening (typically window and door) protection; and

-- have roofing materials that provide a resistance to water penetration, high winds and hail and provisions that take flood and wildfire into consideration.

…ANPAC adopted the Fortifiedfor safer living model after the Gulf Coast was devastated in 2005, said Agent Doug Jones. ANPAC believes that homes within 100 miles of the coast should be built to a higher standard. The discount we offer can reduce the insurance cost by hundreds of dollars per year by protecting against major risks Louisiana residents face.