The Risk of Climate Change for Architecture and Engineering - Article Example

The Risk of Climate Change: imperative for Architecture and engineering Climate Change and Risk Management . The large-scale accumulation of greenhouse gases is considered as the initiator of majority of climate change linked catastrophes. Major risks associated with the climate change are lowered access to drinking water, higher probability of flooding, issues related to food security mostly in the regions of Africa, Asia and Latin America. Architecture and engineering sectors have a significant role to play in mitigating these impacts. Architecture and engineering sectors have a significant role to play in mitigating these impacts. Major changes could be brought about by appropriate changes in the primary planning, designing, construction, operation and maintenance in order to ensure drastic reduction in the green house gas emissions and ensuring sufficient energy to handle the expected impacts arising from the climate change. The important measures that could be proposed are evaluating the existing technologies and proposing its cost effective deployment. The steps initiated shall also include large number of short-term initiatives with high incentives for adopting high efficiency and low or zero green house gas. Initiating research into new technologies and materials and assisting the governments to evolve low carbon infrastructure is another major intervention possible. Thus effective risk management strategy shall be to initiate a design philosophy that would have a very low level of embedded energy in construction and significant reduction in the whole life demand for energy and emissions from the infrastructure (ASCE, 2009). Further, strategies need to be explored to meet the targets set to use innovative strategies for sustainable building, emphasizing the use of on site renewable power and purchase of certified renewable credits. (Architecture 2030, n.d.) . The management techniques practiced to mitigate the impending climate change related risks have begun to evolve. One such initiative is the code of practice in the form of Architecture 2030 that has been released requesting all architects and engineers to adopt certain targets, major being listed below. A performance standard of 50 % of the regional average for a particular building type has been set for all type of new buildings, developments and renovations (Architecture 2030, n.d.). For the existing buildings, a minimum area equivalent to the area of building shall be modified to meet the green house gas reduction targets of 50 % of average for that particular building type. The fossil fuel reduction target for all buildings and renovations is increased to - 60% in 2010, 70% in 2015, 80% in 2020, 90% in 2025 and Carbon-neutral in 2030 (using no fossil fuel GHG emitting energy to operate). 2. Climate Change and Risk Analysis A rigorous risk analysis methodology would be of immense help in understanding the extend of the impact of climate change. Also, an efficient linkage between the climate models and socio- economic and infrastructure models are not well established. The three core issues that need immediate attention in any climate change related mitigatory exercises are ensuring sufficient participation, better agreement on meaningful rules and ensuring compliance with the proposed guidelines or rules. The increasing urbanization and creating pockets of socio-economic progress especially in high-risk areas that would result in the steep escalation in the impact of catastrophes. Thus specific exercises need to evolve to measure the impact potential of each decision or selection of technology and materials. Further, the issues that need to be addressed is not the probability of occurrence of the high magnitude catastrophes but rather to assess the time, frequency and intensity of such devastating events. And when the climate change is the central issue these issues become more relevant. Another aspect that need to be analyzed is the clear distinction of roles and responsibilities between public and private bodies. Contrary to the common belief that majority of crisis management and mitigatory initiatives are with government, it is a fact that most of the private bodies have very effective role in the intervention to protect the public problems. This another aspect that need to be considered in the evaluation exercise is nature of interventions incorporated in the project and how the resource support for them is attained. Research studies undertaken have established that the buildings are considered to be the major culprits of green house gas emissions . This is due to the reason that the buildings consume materials that lead to large scale emission of Green House Gases (GHG) as by product during their production process. The strategy that are commonly adopted is by reducing the accumulation rate of GHGs and then reversing the trend over the next 10 years as an attempt to keep the global temperature below 1 degree above the existing level. Thus the methodology of construction, material choice and technology used are the primary factors that need to be considered in the detailed analysis. 3. Imperative climate change on Architecture The evolution of regional architectural forms is more dependent on the climate factor at that particular place. The choice of materials would thus depend of the type of the form evolved. As the climate change impact becomes severe the entire architectural forms would have to be subjected to a detailed introspection. The primary evaluation would to see the extend of embedded energy in a building unit and evolving an architecture that would demand less energy in any building unit. In addition to the efforts made to reduce the embodied energy in the building the functional energy requirement too need to be minimized significantly. This aspect is achieved by introducing renewable energy based building systems or focussing on the maximum possible use of natural ventilation and day lighting. Also, incorporating water conservation measures like artificial recharge units, rainwater harvesting techniques, effective waste disposal etc. too forms the important aspects that need to be given attention in sustainable architectural designs. Thus more than the large quantities of material consumption, the optimization in the consumption of the resources too becomes an important area of concern under climate change threats. The resource depletion is one the major threats that would emerge under these situations and hence building forms that demand lesser resource would be the most acceptable one (Sustainable architecture, n.d.). 4. Imperative climate change on Engineering The most challenging aspect among the environmental issues being faced by civil engineers is to devise mechanisms that could reduce the climate change impacts and also helps them to adapt to the prevailing situation. It is widely known that the civil engineering works rely mostly on high-energy materials like cement and steel (Enviroarc, n.d.). And more closer regional wise analysis on the impacts shows that it is widely expected that the poor regions along the tropics would be the most affected. Further, the prevailing practices in these locations would have considerable scope for improvement too. Thus some of the effective intervention would be incorporation of energy efficient bricks rather than conventional burned bricks. The manufacturing processes of burned bricks require huge quantities of firewood or coal in the kilns. Both the fuels would contribute to the adverse effects of climate change. The large quantities of fire wood used in this process is at the expense of the forest land while burning of coal, a fossil fuel, lead to large scale emission of carbon-di-oxide. Another aspect is the production process of cement and steel. Most of the developing countries producing cement have production technologies that are not very fuel efficient. Thus incorporation clean technologies in these countries need considerable amount of financial support besides the access to technologies (Fernandez, 2007). Inspite of these specific issues, there exist considerable amount of uncertainties on the pattern on the critical aspect of the climate change and the factors controlling them. Thus the engineering systems in future need to have the capability to evaluate the project and its system for its ability to act against the climate change (.Julian, 2007). 5. Recommendation Vital architectural and engineering interventions are necessary to mitigate the climate change impacts in an effort to ensure safe habitat on the earth. The interventions proposed could be broadly grouped into two separate approaches. The newly proposed projects and projects being implemented currently forms the first segment. While, those that are completed and already occupied or under use could be categorized into the other part. Different approaches need to be formulated for both the categories. For the projects in pipeline and under implementation, it could be subjected to detailed introspection and possible modifications could be incorporated.  While those placed in the later group, better interventions for ensuring low carbon emissions through retrofitting and replacements shall also be explored. The proposal shall also include larger level policy initiative as well as operational action at the local level. Setting clear and achievable targets for reduction of green house gas in the form of encouraging the use of low carbon materials is one such approach. All infrastructure initiatives are supported by the large scale use cement and steel - two most energy intensive materials and produced by contributing large scale carbon-di-oxide emissions  into the environment. Thus, the interventions could be either in the form of promoting sustainable design philosophies that limit the use of cement and steel and encourage the extensive use of innovative materials that have low carbon loads. Another approach is by motivating private investments in green house gas reduction technologies. As large portion of the infrastructure works are undertaken by private agencies a scheme or package that motivates them to invest or incorporate energy and environmental efficient technologies need to be formulated. Creating a global level contious creation on energy efficiency in buildings need to be planned appropriately.  Thus an internation network for creation of architectural practice for sustainability need to be emphasized. 6. Conclusion . Both the architects and engineers have a big role to play towards mitigating the adverse effects of climate change. The importance of such an initiative is inevitable considering the long term sustainability of built environment.  This is possible by creating necessary frame for assessment of sustainability by considering the various operations in construction and building sector that lead to global climate change. A general code of good practices for architects and engineers need to be prepared and communicated to all the members in this sector and hence could create a unified opinion on certain practices across the world. Thus analyzing the system and documenting the key risks is the basic steps that need to be completed in this context. In the past, the global level cooperative efforts on climate change have not yielded desired results starting with Kyoto summits in the year 1997. It is also understood that the three important components for effective implementation - political framework, financial support systems and the practical measures to be followed at all the regions of world with a genuine interest to tilt the current pattern in emission rate – have not been accepted and formulated well. Further, it is also established that significant reductions in emissions is necessary in order to stay under 2o C rise in temperature. And as the worst effects are expected in the tropical countries where majority of world’s poor population resides, the rich countries would have to support them to acquire the clean technologies. Finally, with large scale infrastructure development being expected in majority of tropical nations the architecture and engineering operations need to undergo large scale modernization to turn the sector to more environmentally friendly and sustainable. 7. List of References .ASCE (2009), Civil Engineering and climate change protocol, [Online] Available at [Accessed on 28 September 2009] Architecture 2030 (n.d.), The 2030 Challenge, [Online] Available at [Accessed on 28 September 2009] Environarc (.n.d ), Energy efficient materials [Online] Available from http://www.environarc.com.au/images/EnvironArc_Design_EnergyEfficientMaterials.pdf[Accessed on 29 September 2009] Fernandez, J.E. ( 2007), Materials for Aesthetic, Energy-Efficient, and Self-Diagnostic Buildings, Science . 315 (5820) pp. 1807 - 1810. Julian, H (2007), Climate change and civil engineering challenges, Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers. Civil engineering, 160(4) ,pp.170-175. Keohane, R.O. and Raustiala, K (2008), Towards a post-Kyoto climate change Architecture, [Online] Available from [Accessed on 29 September 2009]. Ringler, T (n.d.) , Risk analysis and climate change, [Online] Available from [Accessed on 29 September 2009]. Sustainable architecture (n.d.), Building today for tomarrow [Online] Available from http://www.greenhomebuilding.com/sustainable_architecture.htm[Accessed on 29 September 2009] Read More