Resiliency is perhaps one of the greatest priorities of the builders of our time. The NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information says 2022 tied for the third highest number of billion-dollar disasters in the United States. 2022 was also third highest in total costs, with a whopping cost of at least $165 billion.
Both natural and manmade disasters are causing havoc, necessitating homes, buildings, and infrastructure that can stand the test of the elements. While the construction industry can’t completely stop the storm, so to speak, construction professionals can build infrastructure that is more sustainable and resilient.
The ASCE (American Society of Engineers) aims to help with a new online toolkit called Pathways to Resilient Communities. This is designed for community leaders looking to improve their built environment’s ability to respond to an increasing number of storms and other threats.
Time to flip the page on this report. The toolkit summarizes the difference between codes, standards, and manuals of practice and denotes where local leaders can take action to ensure these resources are put into practice. The resource also features ASCE’s hazard-specific standards for threats to the built environment by region, including flooding, earthquakes, wind, hurricanes, tornadoes, tsunamis, winter weather, and more.
Looking beyond ASCE standards, the toolkit also looks at another program as well: the Envision program from the Institute for Sustainable Infrastructure, which was developed by the ASCE, the APWA (American Public Works Assn.) and the ACEC (American Council of Engineering Companies).
This program aims to help construction professionals and government build and design infrastructure focused on climate change, public health, environmental justice, and economic benefits. Envision verification provides an evidence-based approach to demonstrate a project meets the community’s needs and expectations.
While the primary benefit of more resilient infrastructure can minimize the damage after a major disaster, there are other benefits as well. ASCE points to the fact it can also reduce the time and cost of rebuilding. Additionally, building to the latest codes and standards can have financial incentives. Many grant programs offer advantages for using the most current standards.
At the end of the day, we need more resilient infrastructure and with the right standards, materials, trusted data, and technologies we can most certainly build the infrastructure of tomorrow that is more resilient than the infrastructure of yesterday.
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