Quantification of thermal resilience in buildings: Evaluation of Building Envelope Performance and Operational Parameters

Climate change and extreme heat are critical issues which have been faced all over the world. Consequently, designers strive to monitor and assess the performance of facades by developing environmental assessments at the early design stages, since design changes do not require many resources. Rapid urban expansion in many parts of the world is...

Resilience assessment of asphalt pavement rutting under climate change

The service performances of asphalt pavement, especially rutting, will be inevitably affected by climate change. However, existing studies have generally focused on the rutting depth and rutting life, and thus became insufficient for comprehensively evaluating the influence of climate change on rutting over the service life. A resilience...

Making waves in resilience: Drawing lessons from the COVID-19 pandemic for advancing sustainable development

The current COVID-19 pandemic has affected societies across the world while its economic impact has cut deeper than any recession since the Second World War. Climate change is potentially an even more disruptive and complex global challenge. Climate change could cause social and economic damage far larger than that caused by COVID-19. The...

Enabling Socio-Ecological Resilience in the Global South: Insights from Chennai, India

Addressing climate change adaptation in the cities of the Global South is crucial as they are the most at risk and, arguably, the least capable of coping with it due to their rapid expansion, informal development, and limited institutional capacity. This paper explores this challenge in the case of Chennai, India, a city which, in recent years,...

Consideration of climate change-induced corrosion by structural codes

The impact of climate change on ambient temperature and relative humidity along with the present CO2 levels are speeding the corrosion process of reinforced concrete structures. The alarming cost of the associated reduction of the service life of structures, which is estimated to cost 3% to 4% of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of...

Reviving the degraded: Planning the unplanned spaces in unproductive landscape

Parkstad is a shrinking region especially after the closing of the mines, the social and economic impact was huge. Another major problem which still can be experienced today is the degraded landscape which was left behind. By seeing the operational landscape as inseparable from the urban fabric, and linking them again in a functional as well as...

From Landscape to Landscape: Multifunctional adaptation strategies for the Scheldt estuary

In recent years, processes of urbanisation have been changing the face of the world as we know it. A whole new landscape is being built, one with many more challenges and externalities than the previous one. <br/>Besides the correlation that these intense urbanisation processes have with climate change, more subtly, they relate to a conceptual...

Prescription of maintenance interventions by the new generation of Eurocodes for climate-change resilient structures

The new generation of structural Eurocodes will include climate change adaption measures in order to enhance the climate resilience of infrastructures across Europe. This paper discusses the impact that climate change might have on reinforced concrete structures subjected to corrosion, and the associated challenges of the standardisation of...

‘All sunshine makes a desert’. Building interdisciplinary understanding of survival strategies of ancient communities in the arid Zerqa Triangle, Jordan Valley

Archaeological studies typically describe arid areas as extremely unpleasant areas for human occupation and use. Without suggesting that arid areas are pleasant places, however, this paper provides a reassessment of the meaning of aridity for an area showing a vast amount of evidence of (past) human activities. Several climatic proxy data...

Assessing the capacity of adaptive policy pathways to adapt on time by mapping trigger values to their outcomes

Climate change raises serious concerns for policymakers that want to ensure the success of long-term policies. To guarantee satisfactory decisions in the face of deep uncertainties, adaptive policy pathways might be used. Adaptive policy pathways are designed to take actions according to how the future will actually unfold. In adaptive...

The Brisbane Declaration and Global Action Agenda on Environmental Flows (2018)

A decade ago, scientists and practitioners working in environmental water management crystallized the progress and direction of environmental flows science, practice, and policy in The Brisbane Declaration and Global Action Agenda (2007), during the 10th International Riversymposium and International Environmental Flows Conference held in...

Modeling dynamics and adaptation at operational and structural scales for the ex-ante economic evaluation of large dams in an African context

Dams can produce electricity and ensure water security, but at the same time they radically alter the hydrological regime of rivers with significant consequences for the economic and environmental welfare of the region in which they are located. Cost-benefit analysis (CBA) is currently the most frequently used framework for the economic...

Working Waterfront Newtown Creek - Adaptive multi-layer flood protection on brownfield opportunity areas

For 400 years New York has a turbulent interaction with its surrounding waters. It embraced, tamed, neglected and rediscovered the waterfront which made its greatness possible. Hurricane Sandy brought in a new complexity for New York and its relationship with the waterfront. The storm reminded the city where it is located and paid a high price...