Energy regulations require strickter enforcement as response to climate change

Since a few years the attention for building regulatory systems and enforcement procedures is growing. Various developments in society, politics and the construction industry have influenced changes in the systems of building control in the last 20 years. The influence of climate change and the related demands on buildings will have a very...

Living climate change: Design thinking and learning in complexity

As the world moves into an era of significant changes predicated by the challenge of sustainability, the future holds many questions, with serious consequences depending on the answers. Given the implications of these changes, the world’s design community needs to be constantly challenged to respond. To support conversations on what life will be...

Living climate change: Design thinking and learning in complexity

As the world moves into an era of significant changes predicated by the challenge of sustainability, the future holds many questions, with serious consequences depending on the answers. Given the implications of these changes, the world’s design community needs to be constantly challenged to respond. To support conversations on what life will be...

Climate change and inland shipping

Although much attention is given to the consequences of climate change with respect to melting icecaps, starving polar bears, sea level rise and inadequate storm defense systems, there may be severe consequences for inland shipping too. Not only because of more frequent occurrence and longer durations of closed storm surge barriers, which may...

The bike is back with a battery

The attention the electric car receives as a promising means of sustainable transportation seems at times to overshadow the rise of that other electric vehicle: the pedelec or electric bicycle. For those who don't know yet: a pedelec is a bicycle assisted by an electric motor. That motor is powered by a rechargeable (lithium-ion) battery. The...

Coastal defence solutions (approach of ComCoast)

Along the North Sea coast, water levels are rising and waves are intensifying due to climate change. The best scientific evidence suggests that both phenomena are likely to accelerate over the coming decades. In some North Sea coastal areas also land is sinking and tidal heights and rates of erosion are increasing. This means that the risk of...

Impacts of climate change on the principles of dike design

Dike design is a very traditional craft. Since many generations dikes have been constructed in our part of Europe. After each disaster the dike was rebuilt, and improved. The improvement was always based on the experiences of the previous flood. For example, for many years the design height of a dike was determined as the height of the highest...

Climate change impact on the deltas of Ebro, Po and Rhone: Conceptual models for coastal fringes’ response

All the Mediterranean Dehas are submitted to a physical regression of their coastal fringes and dominated by the wave action because of the decreased water and sediment discharges, if compared to previous stages of their histories. The decrease of the discharges is a consequence of water and solid retention and deviation in the continental...

Impact of climatic change on the Po Delta: Deltaic fringe modelling

With the present paper we aim at summarizing the work undertaken in the MEDDELT Project on the characterisation of the dynamical processes of the Po Delta Fringe and particulalry highlight the conceptual developments achieved about the integrated modelling. We assume to be in a region of the deltaic area where there is tipically a direct...

Long term evolution of coastal morphology and global change

Long-term prediction of sediment transport and of morphological behaviour in the coastal zone, in response to human interference or to change in environmental conditions (collectively global change) is an increasingly important issue in coastal zone management, especially in relation to the needs for environmentally compatible development....