Reports Offer Look at How Climate Change is Impacting New York State’s Buildings
Much of the talk about buildings and climate change has focused on reducing greenhouse gas emissions. What often gets overlooked is ensuring that buildings are prepared for future climate impacts.
That's imperative because with climate change will come more frequent, intense storms, along with other climate-related hazards.
Take, for example, Hurricane Sandy, which whipped through
Many states prepare climate assessments that gauge the impact of climate change on numerous sectors, such as the economy, transportation and agriculture. However, none of these reports have examined how climate change will impact buildings, the places in which people spend more than 90 percent of their time.
The reports were published online and are intended to provide information and strategies that can be valuable to everyone from architects and engineers to state and federal policymakers.
"The vast majority of our building stock has already been built. So thinking about how to rehabilitate or retrofit existing buildings is really important going forward. Making sure our buildings are prepared and more resilient to future climate impacts is also very cost effective," said
Rajkovich and his UB research team -- which included faculty and students affiliated with
"
"Our partnership with the
Climate resilience is becoming a key issue in the built environment, one that has major economic and societal implications, Rajkovich said, citing a
"We spend 90 percent of our time indoors, and 40 percent of greenhouse gas emissions come from the building stock in the
"It's exciting to have this opportunity with NYSERDA. Our hope is that other states will want to take a closer look at this as well," he added.
Understanding
The
The information is broken down by county and region, which allows everyone from building professionals to elected officials to visualize climate risks at a local level.
It also makes available in one document information that would normally require an extensive amount of research to find.
Historical data, for example, is contained in the multi-hazards report that the
For a future outlook, one could consult climate assessments such as ClimAID, compiled by NYSERDA.
Calculating climate hazard costs
This 62-page document considers the historic building-related economic losses from four types of climate hazards -- winter storms, hurricanes, severe storms and flooding -- from 1960 to 2014.
During that time, hurricanes caused more than
Surprisingly, however, the impact of hurricanes extended beyond
Flooding has been extremely damaging, especially in the Southern Tier and the East Hudson and Mohawk River Valleys, where flooding caused greater total losses than hurricanes. Floods caused an average of
"One of the interesting things that come out of this report is that even though 40 percent of building stock is downstate, some of the more rural regions of the state may actually be less prepared because they have a lot fewer contractors and other service providers who can help respond. So, it makes adaptation potentially more challenging in places like the Adirondacks or the Southern Tier," Rajkovich said.
Climate resilience strategies for buildings
Many building professionals mistakenly assume that future weather conditions will be similar to what's been experienced in the past.
That's likely to be a costly mistake as climate conditions change in the coming decades, according to the researchers, who say that increasing the resilience of buildings now can reduce the negative impacts of climate hazards in the future.
The Climate Resilience Strategies for Buildings in
Each strategy is formatted on a two-page spread that features information on suggested locations, applicable hazards and related strategies. Each is applicable to multiple climate hazards.
"The strategies in here are pretty high-level. Building owners and operators can find guidance to help them make their buildings more resilient to some of these potential climate hazards," Rajkovich said. "But I think the existing building stock is going to be a tough nut to crack. We really need to focus significant attention on it."
October symposium aims to bring more attention to the issue
In addition to compiling the reports, the project also included interviews with practicing building professionals. Those conversations revealed that architects and engineers are thinking heavily about reducing a building's greenhouse gas emissions, but not as much about climate impacts on the building stock.
"They weren't thinking as much about adaptation," Rajkovich says. "Our hope is that this project gets people to start thinking about this issue."
Toward that end, the research team is hosting a symposium
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