Climate Change: Designing for the Future-Climate Change and the Built Environment

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This comprehensive publication, edited by Patricia B. Gary and Lisa L. Churchill, addresses the critical interactions between climate change and the built environment. The book encompasses historical context, planning, legal issues, professional practices, and case studies.<br /><br />Key themes include:<br /><br />1. Historical Overview of Climate Change: Tracing Earth's natural climate cycles, the scientific discovery of human contributions to climate change, the rising levels of greenhouse gases like CO2, and the increasing global temperature trends. The chapter emphasizes the ethical imperative and urgency of acting to mitigate climate change.<br /><br />2. Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies: Highlighting the built environment's role, which contributes 39% of global carbon emissions, the text discusses strategies for reducing operational and embodied carbon, including innovations in materials, design, and green building codes. Adaptation encompasses climate-resilient infrastructure planning and design, risk management, and updated standards responding to rising sea levels, extreme weather, and flooding. Case examples include Massachusetts’ climate resilience design standards.<br /><br />3. Legal Issues and Considerations: An exploration of liability and risk management for design professionals amid evolving climate risks. The discussion covers litigation trends, contract law, indemnification, insurance coverage, standards of care, and emerging statutory and regulatory frameworks addressing climate adaptation and mitigation responsibilities.<br /><br />4. Professional Practice: Descriptions of project delivery methods like design-bid-build, construction management at risk, design-build, and public-private partnerships, with insights into how these influence sustainable outcomes. Emphasis is placed on risk allocation, contract provisions, and insurance implications for climate-resilient infrastructure projects.<br /><br />5. Case Studies: Detailed examples such as the Whitney Museum flood mitigation in New York City, the US 34 Big Thompson Canyon flood recovery in Colorado, Boston’s Harbor resilience designs, and Louisiana’s sediment diversion efforts, illustrating the application of adaptive, nature-based, and resilient design to current climate challenges.<br /><br />Throughout, the editors underscore the enormous challenges posed by climate change but also the opportunities for design professionals to lead in mitigation and adaptation by applying interdisciplinary, systems-based approaches that integrate sustainability, resilience, and equity. The publication serves as a primer and guide for engineers, architects, planners, legal professionals, and policymakers committed to advancing sustainable, adaptive, and resilient built environments in the face of accelerating climate threats.

Keywords

climate change

built environment

mitigation strategies

adaptation strategies

greenhouse gas emissions

legal issues in climate adaptation

sustainable design

resilient infrastructure

case studies

professional practices