Many clients are at a crossroads between codes, resilience and climate change. Finding a solution to this is paramount for tactical and strategic planning purposes.
Code Compliance is not Synonymous with Resilience
When facing hazards that are becoming more frequent and more intense, perhaps due to climate change, it is easy to realize that code compliance becomes meaningless. Codes work for the time they were written, both in terms of resilience and frequency. A code-compliant solution may indeed be very fragile and not resilient at all.
For example, from our next book that specifically deals with this kind of risk, we analysed the risks at a large food factory exposed to flooding. We advised the factory to rebuild their plant hangars/processes on 2-m-high fills and to install all their electrical commands on the roof. The plant was already “code-compliant,” but the code was insufficient to address the floods the factory experienced twice in ten years before our intervention.
Ten Commandments for Resilience Enhancement
A while ago, we wrote a blogpost about the 10 commandments for resilient design. They are the synthesis of our worldwide experience of risk-based decision-making in risk mitigation and sustainability enhancements. We believe these can be preliminary suggestions. We present an example below with respect to hurricane winds potentially affecting a client’s plant.
1) Never rely on the properties of a single material/component. Have emergency stocks of key products and raw material, if possible, distanced and protected.
2) Ensure that redundancies are true. Try to find ways to protect against power outages. If two same machines or lines are operating, ensure they are distanced and powered independently.
3) Avoid fragile failures at all costs. Avoid putting all eggs in one basket.
4) Promote ductile failures. Prepare and drill emergency readiness plans.
5) Ensure that failure does not propagate. If the four prior points are in place, then you are already well-prepared for emergencies.
6) Limit and control interdependencies. Check all ingress/egress, logistics, and neighboring infrastructural networks.
7) Understand your system and keep an eye on its evolution. Update risk assessments as necessary.
8) Avoid sliding into normalization of deviance: Ensure swift reporting of anomalous behavior/unplanned changes. Prepare for planned changes that may alter the system, such as a new substation, new tanks, new parkades, etc.
9) Understand the limits of what you know and what you do not know. Have a regular third-party review.
10) Adapt your design and maintain your systems. Act swiftly on recommendation of risk updates and third-party reviews.
Closing Remarks to Codes, Resilience and Climate Change
Before implementing new risk mitigation strategies, you will need to discuss them, perform risk assessments, and finally vet them with respect to climate change projections. You will have to pay close attention to secondary effects of any proposed changes. Furthermore, you should evaluate any alternative using risk-adjusted cost estimates rather than the obsolete and misleading net present value. Once complete, you will have performed a risk-informed rational and sustainable resilience enhancement plan.
