Pathway to Resilience

How resilience planning and enhanced building codes and standards can help protect communities in the face of disasters
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National Institute of Building Sciences (NIBS)

The National Institute of Building Sciences (NIBS) undertook a study in 2017 to quantify the value of designing buildings to exceed the 2015 IBC or IRC for hazards, including riverine flooding, hurricane surge, wind, earthquakes, and wildfires, with the objective of reducing losses. Results revealed that for every dollar spent on building above code, the amount of money saved ranged from $4 to $7 depending on the hazard.

The report suggests that architects and engineers can help clients understand the potential risks associated with a project and determine an owner’s risk tolerance and ability to mitigate these risks. Strategies to exceed minimum requirements of the 2015 building codes include:

  • For flood resistance (to address riverine flooding and hurricane surge), build new buildings higher above base flood elevation than required by the 2015 IBC.
  • For resistance to hurricane winds, build new homes to comply with the IBHS FORTIFIED Home Hurricane standards.
  • For resistance to earthquakes, build new buildings stronger and stiffer than required by the 2015 IBC.
  • For fire resistance in the wildland-urban interface, build new buildings to comply with the 2015 International Wildland-Urban Interface Code (IWUIC).

The NIBS report suggests that all major stakeholders, including developers, lenders, tenants, and communities, benefit from resilient construction. The greatest benefits are afforded to building owners who do not have to spend as much to repair and rebuild after a disaster, but there are other benefits too. Tenants benefit from having functioning shelter and places to work after a disaster, and the community benefits from reduced cost of disaster recovery both in terms of reduced loss of life and business continuity.

MIT Break-Even Mitigation Percentage Tool

Too often, building developers make decisions about materials or building techniques to keep initial costs down. Although the resulting structures are built to code, these codes often fail to factor in the long-term costs or impacts on future owners and communities. Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Concrete Sustainability Hub (CSHub) have developed a new tool to calculate the economic benefits of investing in more hazard-resistant structures in hurricane-prone areas. MIT’s Break-Even Mitigation Percentage (BEMP) tool evaluates the cost-effectiveness of mitigation for a building in a location by factoring in the expected damage a conventional building designed to code would endure over its lifetime. Then it compares that to the cost of a more resilient, enhanced building design to justify building to a higher standard. As would be expected, the greatest cost savings comes from building resilient buildings in counties directly on the Atlantic and Gulf coasts.

Conclusion

Resiliency planning offers communities, building owners, and design professionals an opportunity to play a key role in determining the essential services and infrastructure needs that underpin economic vitality, health, and safety of citizens and support sustainability. National codes and standards are valuable, but the most effective method would be actively engaging in the local planning and code-development process. By participating in code development so that building standards include hazard mitigation for fire safety, water access, energy conservation, and property protection, a community makes the conscious choice to invest in its own future.

Resilient building standards are not a panacea for all problems. Nevertheless, to subject our vulnerable population to the all too often shortsighted political or economic decisions that trump safety considerations is unconscionable when the technology and economic returns of disaster resilience are well understood. Put simply, we all know that we must embrace change and build differently if we are to have a resilient future. High-performance standards can help to make this happen. And, by promoting the development and adoption of advanced codes, standards and ratings systems, incentives, and other measures that emphasize and encourage resilience, architects and engineers can lead by example.

In the end, no community can ever be completely safe from all hazards. Generally, it would be uneconomical to design commercial or residential buildings to survive a direct blow from a tornado with 300-mph wind speeds or magnitude 9.0 earthquakes. But resilience promotes greater emphasis on what communities can do for themselves before a disaster hits and how to strengthen their local capacities, rather than be dependent on our overwhelmed governmental agencies and aging infrastructure. Disasters are inevitable, but their consequences need not be.

 

Build with Strength, a coalition of the National Ready Mixed Concrete Association

Build with Strength, a coalition of the National Ready Mixed Concrete Association, educates the building and design communities and policymakers on the benefits of ready mixed concrete, and encourages its use as the building material of choice. No other material can replicate concrete’s advantages in terms of strength, durability, safety and ease of use.

 

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Originally published in May 2021


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