Concrete Compass: Climate change resilience
Climate change resilience is the ability to prepare for, respond to and recover from the impacts of climate change while minimising damage to the environment, economy and society.
The need to consider climate change impact and prepare for them is recognised as being fundamental to the development of a resilient built environment. The government’s National Design Guide for planning development calls for places that are robust and that take into account both prevailing and forecasted local environmental conditions. Well-designed places are described as those that address ‘the potential effects of temperature extreme in summer and winter, increased flood risk, and more intense weather events such as rain storms’. Since its publication wildfires have become recognised as an additional and significant climate change hazard.
The inherent resilience of concrete and masonry to the impacts of floods, heat waves and wildfire hazards provides opportunity to embed effective and passive climate change resilience within our built environment through simple design choices.
This compass helps to navigate to the evolving range of related resources produced by The Concrete Centre.
General guidance
Designing resilient homes provides an overview on the inherent climate change resilience concrete and masonry provide, specific to housing.
A range of articles related to resilient construction are available in the Ahead of the Game magazine.
Overheating
Overheating mitigation is now a requirement in the Building Regulations through Part O. Design strategies for tackling overheating include the use of thermal mass with night cooling. A dedicated web page on the strategies to reduce the impacts of overheating can be found here. The publication Overheating and webinar Overheating and Part O provide more detailed guidance on the use of thermal mass to reduce overheating and meet Part O of the Building Regulations.
Guidance on thermal mass in general and its benefits for passive cooling are available on the pages of this website dedicated to various aspects of thermal mass including links to further publications including Thermal Mass Explained.
Flooding
Flood events are a common natural hazard, resulting in significant social and economic cost in many parts of the country and climate change is increasing the challenge of managing their impact.
Properties are vulnerable to flooding not only where located close to rivers, lakes and seas due to storm surges and rising sea levels, but also in other urban locations where existing water systems are unable to cope.
Managing flood risk effectively requires a combination of national and regional strategic and community planning and preparation as well as the design of individual properties and development. Strategies include creation and maintenance of flood defences, sustainable urban drainage systems and improved property level flood resilience. Nature based solutions are evolving to help address this challenge but ‘hard’ infrastructure also has an essential role to play, including the use of concrete.
Focus on Property Level Flood Resilience (PLFR)
Masonry and concrete are recommended materials for enhancing the flood resilience of new properties, a key benefit being the retention of structural integrity in the presence of water, limiting the extent of damage occurring during a flood event and supporting a speedy recovery.
The 'Flood Resilience Starts at Home' article in Concrete Quarterly summer 2020, explores this subject further.
BS 85500:2015 ‘Flood resistant and resilient construction – Guide to improving the flood performance of buildings’ provides guidance and details on material selection, including recommended wall and floor build ups using concrete and masonry. More information can be found here. A revision to this standard is due to be published in 2025.
Focus on flood defences
Strength, durability and lack of maintenance are key performance benefits of concrete, fundamental to its selection as the principal material used for vertical flood defences. Both in-situ and precast concrete are used in a wide range of applications along the coast and rivers to limit flooding. Essential guidance of design options for marine and coastal infrastructure is available here.
With rising sea levels and an increased risk of flooding the repair, replacement and improvement of coastal and fluvial flood defences has been placed into sharp focus. This short video describes the Environmental Agencies’ use of lower carbon concrete for providing new flood defences https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VNn54IpgefY
This webinar highlights The Mumbles Sea-Hive project in Wales, a recent example of academia, industry and local community working together to enhance the aesthetics and biodiversity of sea flood defences through the development of durable, low carbon, beautiful and nature enhancing concrete tiles.
The creation of texture, shape and cavity in low carbon eco-engineered concrete products for use as part of river and coastal flood defences is demonstrated in this recording of a live stream from Artecology’s workshop on the Isle of Wight.
The use of self-healing concrete to enhance the properties of precast concrete marine structures is presented here.
Sustainable Urban Drainage systems (SuDS)
Sustainable urban drainage systems are designed to manage surface water runoff and are fundamental to reducing the risk of surface water flooding. Many incorporate nature-based solutions, to reduce the number of impermeable surfaces in a development.
There are also many concrete products designed to be used with SuDs, providing essential hard standing and thoroughfares as well as effective rainwater management. These include a variety of types of precast block paving, pervious concrete cast in situ and hollow concrete kerbs.
These concrete SuDS together with concrete culverts and buried concrete pipes and storm water tanks perform an essential role in flood risk management.
Focus on permeable block paving
A range of concrete block paving solutions are available, specifically to create permeable pavements. These products incorporate enlarged joints created by larger-than-conventional spacer nibs on the sides of each paving block, or voids generated by geometric block shapes to allow rainwater to drain through it into the ground below. An overview of the principles of SuDS design using concrete block paving is available here.
A comprehensive review of all aspects of concrete block permeable paving can be found in Edition 7 of ‘Understanding permeable paving’ published by Interpave, MPA Precast.
The Interpave website also includes a collection of exemplar case studies and other useful guidance related to block paving.
Focus on pervious concrete
Pervious concrete can be used for a variety of paving applications. It is designed to allow water to flow through, making it an ideal product for use within SuDS.
Unlike most concrete, pervious concrete contains little or no sand, which creates a product with a high void content allowing water infiltration. The voids are interconnected, resulting in a concrete that has a high permeability. This concrete is available to be cast insitu to create fast draining horizontal surfaces for carparks, pavements, low traffic roads and other hard standing.
Alternative mixes for pervious concrete are also evolving. Examples include mixes using recycled shells trialled in Blackpool, research for solutions that also encourage plant growth, and alternative methods of creating flow through the concrete using permanent permeable formwork.
Focus on green roofs
Green roofs can reduce the amount of stormwater runoff, helping to keep local water systems from becoming overwhelmed during heavy storms, and reducing the risk of surface water flooding.
According to the Green Roof Code of Best Practice for the UK, where a flat roof is to act as a roof terrace or roof garden (i.e. an intensive green roof) they should only be used in conjunction with concrete decks. In other words, concrete is essential for the creation of accessible roof gardens.
The benefits of green roofs and the key role of concrete in creating a biodiverse roofscape are explored in Concrete Quarterly, summer 2015 article, ‘The growth of the green roof’.
Wildfires
Recent years have seen a proliferation of wildfires taking hold in the UK in times of extreme heat and drought. A significant and fundamental performance benefit of concrete and masonry construction is its non-combustibility and slow rate of heat transfer. Concrete ensures that structural integrity remains, fire compartmentation is not compromised and shielding from heat can be relied upon. The extent of damage after a fire is also significantly reduced. Read here for more information.
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