Design for Flooding E-Book

Donald Watson

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 445

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2010

Beschreibung

"Design for Flooding contains considerable useful information for practitioners and students. Watson and Adams fill the void for new thinking...and they advance our ability to create more sustainable, regenerative, and resilient places." --Landscape Architecture Magazine

Leseprobe

Table of Contents

Title Page

Copyright Page

PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Foreword

FOREWORD

Introduction

THE CHALLENGE

THE OPPORTUNITY

WATER AS A FOCUS OF RESILIENT DESIGN

OUTLINE OF THIS BOOK

THESIS OF DESIGN FOR FLOODING

NOTES

PART I - NATURE OF WATER

CHAPTER 1 - WEATHER

1.1 SUN AND EARTH

1.2 THE ATMOSPHERE

1.3 WEATHER

CHAPTER 2 - LAND AND WATER

2.1 WATER AND CARBON CYCLES

2.2 BIODIVERSITY AND THE LANDSCAPE

2.3 FOLLOW THE WATER: THE OPPORTUNITY FOR WATERSHED PLANNING

CHAPTER 3 - FLOODING

3.1 FLOODING FROM INCREASED PRECIPITATION

3.2 FLOODING FROM SEVERE STORMS

3.3 ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL COSTS OF WATER-RELATED NATURAL DISASTERS

PART II - DESIGN WITH WATER

CHAPTER 4 - THE NATURAL LANDSCAPE

4.1 UNDERSTANDING THE NATURAL WATER BALANCE

4.2 WHEN THE WATER BALANCE IS ALTERED

4.3 SOILS AND VEGETATION

4.4 SUBSURFACE WATER MOVEMENT

4.5 STREAM SYSTEMS, WETLANDS, RIPARIAN ZONES, AND FLOODPLAINS

CHAPTER 5 - THE ALTERED LANDSCAPE

5.1 WHEN THE LANDSCAPE IS ALTERED

5.2 ALTERED STREAM SYSTEMS AND INCREASED FLOOD DAMAGE

5.3 WHY DETENTION DOES NOT SOLVE FLOODING

5.4 SUMMARY: THE NATURAL LANDSCAPE AS A MODEL FOR RESILIENT DESIGN

CHAPTER 6 - DESIGN FOR INLAND FLOODING

6.1 RESILIENT DESIGN FOR INLAND FLOODING

6.2 TOOLS FOR WATERSHED PROTECTION

6.3 COMMUNITIES AND BUILDINGS IN FLOODPLAINS

PART III - FLOOD-RESISTANT DESIGN

CHAPTER 7 - FLOOD DESIGN ANALYSIS

7.1 DEFINITION OF TERMS

7.2 FLOOD ELEVATION: BASE FLOOD AND DESIGN FLOOD

CHAPTER 8 - THE COAST

8.1 COASTAL PROCESSES

8.2 SHORELINE PROTECTION

8.3 FLOOD BARRIERS AND FLOODGATES

8.4 SUMMARY OF COASTAL PROTECTION MEASURES

CHAPTER 9 - FLOOD DESIGN PRACTICES FOR BUILDINGS

9.1 OVERVIEW OF FLOOD DESIGN

9.2 FLOOD DESIGN AT THE BUILDING SCALE

PART IV - DESIGN FOR RESILIENCE

CHAPTER 10 - FLOOD-RESISTANT DESIGN FOR SITES AND COMMUNITIES

10.1 COASTAL COMMUNITIES

10.2 COMPREHENSIVE PLANNING FOR RESILIENT COMMUNITIES

10.3 LOCAL ACTIONS TO BUILD COMMUNITY RESILIENCE

CHAPTER 11 - SEA LEVEL RISE

11.1 SEA LEVEL RISE: THE ISSUES

11.2 SEA LEVEL RISE: DESIGN RESPONSES

CHAPTER 12 - DESIGN FOR RESILIENCE

12.1 THE WAVE OF THE FUTURE

12.2 MODELS FOR NATIONAL AND INTERNATIONAL ACTION

12.3 DESIGN RESOLUTION

EPILOGUE

GLOSSARY

AUTHORS AND CONTRIBUTORS

INDEX

FIGURES - COLOR INSERT SECTION

This book is printed on acid-free paper.

Copyright © 2011 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved

Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey

Published simultaneously in Canada

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:

Watson, Donald, 1937-

Design for flooding : architecture, landscape and urban design for resilience to flooding and climate change / Donald Watson and Michele Adams. p. cm.

Includes index.

eISBN : 978-0-470-47564-5

ISBN 978-0-470-89000-4 (ebk); ISBN 978-0-470-89001-1 (ebk); ISBN 978-0-470-89002-8 (ebk); ISBN 978-0-470-95031-9 (ebk); ISBN 978-0-470-95056-2 (ebk);

1. Architecture and climate. 2. Flood damage prevention. 3. City planning—Environmental aspects. 4. Environmental management. 5. Climatic changes. I. Adams, Michele (Michele C.), 1961- II. Title. III. Title: Architecture, landscape and urban design for resilience to flooding and climate change.

NA2541.W38 2011

720’.47—dc22

2010016472

PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The ideas presented in this book combine many voices, over many years of conversation and professional endeavor. The concept of resilience has emerged in the past decade in both international and national responses to severe climatic impacts. The fact that those climatic impacts are in part explained by how we build on the land—the enterprise of the design and construction professions—reverses what many of us spend careers in teaching and practicing: to design with climate, building informed by bioclimatic design principles. This conception has been part of architecture writing and theory since Vitruvius wrote of climate, Sun, and wind influences within the art and science of “building well.” In early twentieth century, Frank Lloyd Wright promoted a poetic and philosophic conception of “organic architecture” in recognition of the inspiration of nature in his work. The “green thread” continued to be expressed in the 1920s and 1930s work of Bauhaus architects, Finnish master architect Alvar Aalto, and American works of Mary Colter, Richard Neutra, the Keck Brothers, and the collaboration of Maria Telkes and Eleanor Raymond, among many others.

Now climate is influenced by design, a reversal of the vector of influence. As viewed in this book, every building project, large or small, contributes to climatic moderation or extremity in some way as part of a watershed, floodplain, or coastal environment. The line that the designer draws has global consequence.

This book thus follows an evolving approach to architecture that the Olgyay brothers defined in the 1950s as “bioclimatic design,” subsequently defined by Ian McHarg as “environmental design,” by Malcomb Wells as “gentle architecture,” followed by “passive solar design” in the 1970s, “regenerative design” by landscape architect John T. Lyle, and “sustainable design” after the Rio Earth Summit in the early 1990s. Each of these terms and their variations attempt some nuance to a deeply felt response of architecture and landscape architecture to the world.

This book grows out of these conversations. The challenge to define a comprehensive vision of sustainable communities evolves from formative discussions of the AIA Committee on the Environment with Bob Berkebile, Randolph Croxton, Susan Maxman, Bill McDonough, Gail Lindsay, Richard Rittelmann, Carol and Colin Franklin, Harry Gordon, Sharon Sutton, and Pliny Fisk and Gail Vittori, to name only a brief few. The preeminence of water as formative element in design was the focus of a “watershed” symposium, Water + Design, sponsored by EPA/AIA in 2006, led by Daniel Williams and Vivian Loftness. The symposium brought together international experts around the topic of water. It demonstrated the power of collaboration of disparate fields from conservation biology sciences to civil engineering design integrated into community, landscape and building design, adding the “blue stream” to the green thread. This collaboration is central to the agenda for resilient design.

Collaboration made this book possible. The authors are indebted to chapter reviews by Carl McDaniel, David Borton, and Tavis Dockwiller. Kate McElwain, Petrik Watson, Kimberly Ann Watson, Brittany Adams, and Linda Thomas prepared artwork and photographs. The notes to each chapter acknowledge additional contributions, all gratefully received, including examples of world-rank photographers, cited in captions and credits.

The technical review of Christopher Jones, P.E., is responsible for much of what is correct in the representation of FEMA requirements and details of best practices of flood-resistant design. The authors alone are responsible for errors that linger.

FOREWORD

CAROL FRANKLIN, RLA, FASLA

The Earth is the water planet, and the only water planet we currently know.

Human beings have become one of the most significant forces misusing water. The premise of this wonderful book is that water is a resource and not a problem and that many small, distributed projects are always better than one big, concentrated solution.

Design for Flooding gives the reader both an understanding of “why to” and a very thorough grasp of “how to” design with this critical resource. It begins with a clear picture of water as a series of interrelated systems that include the atmosphere, the oceans, and the land. The book takes the reader from a broad planetary view to an eagle’s-eye focus on the smallest details and the problems of the design and construction of water management systems.

A gold mine of the latest and best information, this book could be considered one of the first survival guides for the global climate change era. It emphasizes that traditional threats to water resources will be exaggerated by global climate change, with severe impacts on our cities and natural lands. As climate experts have predicted (and as we have recently seen in New Orleans), one of the most visible and immediate effects of climate change will be the increasing severity of storms, resulting in greater river and coastal flooding. Design for Flooding illustrates how these more intense storms will strain the capacity of our already inadequate stormwater management infrastructure and how the impermeable surfaces of our ever-expanding cities have taken away the capacity of the landscape to absorb this water.

One of the newest goals of “green building” strategies is to slow or prevent the present effects of building and site development on climate change. One of the coauthors, Don Watson, a leader in the Green Building Movement, wrote Climatic Design in 1984. That book became a standard reference for architects, detailing how climate can and should influence design in modern building. Twenty-five years later, Design for Flooding focuses on water issues. It provides both an in-depth understanding of the processes that created these problems and design solutions that allow buildings and landscapes to be more “resilient” to storms and flooding.

The conventional wisdom for dealing with water has turned around 180 degrees in the last 30 years. As an engineer in Houston once said in exasperation to one of my colleagues, “All my career I have been trying to get water off a site and you are telling me to keep it on.” Slapping his head, he said, “I must call my boss.”

Many important figures—including the hydrologist Luna Leopold and the landscape architect and regional planner Ian McHarg, among others—laid the foundations for this new paradigm and for the material in this book. Subsequently, civil engineers, such as Tom Cahill, father of Michele Adams, introduced a wider world to the concept of a “water balance” (the flow of water in and out of a watershed). He showed us that the predevelopment water balance was the key to ensuring water in our streams when it is not raining. Tom was not afraid to reach across the aisle to the more “ignorant” design professions to correct our misunderstandings and to convey the basic ways that the water system worked. The solutions that Tom urged on us are now required “best practices” (in more enlightened jurisdictions).

My firm, Andropogon, has worked with Tom and Michele since the beginning of our practice, pioneering imaginative and innovative ways to preserve, restore, or maintain a healthy water balance. Michele now leads the charge that her father started. I have this vivid memory of Michele, 40 years ago, on the site of our first porous paving parking lot. She was carrying big buckets of crushed stone meant for the recharge basin underneath and patiently explaining to the burly construction workers what materials were or were not up to specifications. Both authors bring this combination of solid theory and careful attention to detail, which is one of the delights of this book.

Design for Flooding should be a major tool for public agencies, for the design professions, and for civic activists—indeed, for everyone who wishes to bring a genuinely “intelligent” design for water to their communities. It is a call to action and demonstrates that we have the knowledge, the tools, and the capability to better manage the water system on which we depend.

Carol Franklin, a founding principal of Andropogon Associates, is a registered landscape architect and a Fellow of the American Society of Landscape Architects. She is a nationally recognized expert in sustainable design and in applied ecological restoration.

FOREWORD

DANIEL E. WILLIAMS, FAIA

Over the 6,000-year history of human settlements, the forms and patterns of buildings, cities, and regions have been a response to the social, economic, ecological, and climatic conditions of the time. Science is now telling us that the climate is changing. Cities and regions, especially along coastlines, will be changed from bottom to top. Our response must change as well. The underground infrastructure for water, sewer, communication lines, transportation, and power will be impacted. The structural capacity of the geology and soil will change, as will city boundaries due to sea level rising, changing the terrestrial footprint. These are not “the-sky-is-falling” scenarios. Change has always been part of the planet. The most frequent forcing function of migration and a city’s demise is water—too much or too little. The remarkable and real difference now is that we are, for the first time in history, aware of it while it is happening. As we have a hand in the risks created, we have a hand in the solutions to affect the rate and magnitude of change and disruption.

It can be said that we have learned very little from recent history. We have not left the floodplains, but instead expand within them, removing natural areas or functions that protect us from natural hazards. We live on earthquake faults and in paths of hurricanes and tsunamis. We have not been respectful of the ecological benefits of coastal zone ecologies that support all life. We have rejected opportunities to guide growth and development. Instead, we plan by default, often unconscionable and inefficient land use patterns. We have sent our wastes into the very water reservoirs that provide our children’s water supply—all acts detrimental to the planet, the economy, and our families.

But this time we know more and can do better. We are better at understanding the big picture. We are technically savvy in mapping and data resource analysis, in some cases with real-time satellite monitoring of weather patterns, allowing preparation for some (but not all) extreme weather events. With the unique gift of the creative spirit, we are interested in the challenges of the unknown.

To help prepare for the known unknown, authors Watson and Adams have given us an important and timely guidebook. Important because the science tells us that changes are imminent—and this book explains those changes that impact flooding in straightforward and clearly defined terms—and timely because “sea changes” are already being measured—and this book lays out design projects, programs, and policies by which to address those changes.

Architects and planners are a hybrid of knowledge silos—part scientist, part engineer, part artist, and sometimes visionary—but able to be informed by the knowledge relevant to the time and mindful of the past. Whether it is energy efficiency, flooding, or climate change, knowledge is the foundation of our present agenda. The research, references, and compilation of design principles and practices in Design for Flooding provide that foundation. The chapters on natural landscape offer a detailed and engaging account of the natural systems from regional watersheds, to vernal ponds, to micropores in soils that rely on the water balance and often the planning decision simply to be left alone to provide nature’s free ecosystem services. The chapters on coast flood design provide a clear and comprehensive guide to the complex design and engineering requirements and regulations of flood-resistant design, bringing together dozens of source materials. These chapters, highlighting the most up-to-date recommendations for coastal design professionals, are essential reading for architects, planners, and others working with communities in preparing for flooding or in hurricane disaster remediation. Terms are defined and illustrated to provide the language of multidisciplinary design. Design for Flooding defines the need and opportunity for planners, architects, landscape architects, engineers, and conservation biologists to work together to develop the mix of inland and coastal flooding solutions required for a comprehensive response to climate change. The Glossary alone provides a lexicon of terms that design professionals should know to participate in the challenges of environmental renovation and retrofit and, as the authors express it in their summary chapter, in “the resolution to design for resilience.”

What a remarkable time to be living, a time when we are rethinking what we do, imagining cities as living structures, capable of creating and cycling their own energy and materials, and designing whole regions planned as watersheds that provide a sustainable supply of water, food, and jobs all within a livable-walkable urban patterns. Illustrative examples in Design for Flooding show the way in projects and programs at local, community and national, even international, scale.

If the future of these patterns is to adapt and change—to be resilient—what are the new challenges that we must be aware of and react to? What are the possible opportunities before us for better cities and regions? Watson and Adams give us an overview of these challenges and opportunities with great depth and detail to inform our design and planning and adapt our solutions to flooding. The book Design for Flooding is required reading and viewing—the myriad photographs and illustrations tell a rich story of their own—for any and all involved in the challenges of designing and building a more sustainable future, with and without the flood.

Daniel E. Williams, FAIA, is principal of Daniel Williams Architect in Seattle, with specialization in sustainable architecture and planning. He was 2006 chair of the AIA Sustainability Task Group and is a member of the U.S. EPA National Advisory Council for Environmental Policy and Technology. He currently serves on the Clinton Foundation Climate Change Initiative expert panel. His bookSustainable Design: Ecology, Architecture, and Planning, published by John Wiley & Sons, was selected among the top 10 books of 2008 in urban planning by Planetizen.com.

Atlantic coastal estuary of the Webhannet River, Wells, Maine. Design for resilience improves water resources and the communities that increasingly rely on them for a sustainable future.

(PHOTO: © Robert Perron)

INTRODUCTION

Design for Flooding turns flood threat into opportunity to improve water resources and community resilience at regional, community, and building scales.

These are the only genuine ideas, the ideas of the shipwrecked.

—José Ortega y Gassett, 1930

Design for Flooding builds on the emerging concept of resilience and considers flooding as a natural process. Addressing flooding as a given natural process of weather and water leads to imaginative and comprehensive approaches to resilient design, applicable at regional, community, and building scale.

Resilience is the capacity of a system, community, or society potentially exposed to hazards to adapt, by resisting or changing, in order to reach and maintain an acceptable level of functioning and structure. This is determined by the degree to which the social system is capable of organizing itself to increase its capacity for learning from past disasters for better future protection and to improve risk reduction measures.

—“International Strategy for Disaster Reduction” ISDR Secretariat. 2009 www.unisdr.org/eng/library/lib-terminology-enghome.htm.

Floods are the most frequent natural disaster in the United States. One in three federal disaster declarations are related to flooding, many as a result of hurricanes affecting heavily populated U.S. coastlines. Inland flooding and heavy debris flows follow intense winter storms and spring rainy seasons. Effects attributed to climate change are evidenced in increasingly severe storm events and the prospect of sea level rise.1

Flooding is not new. Some flooding is part of the natural hydrologic cycle and the sustenance it brings to life on Earth. Flooding is natural. It is a disaster because of the way we have built upon areas susceptible to flooding.

Because flooding is little understood and appreciated as a natural system in conventional land development, it arrives with unwelcomed and unanticipated intensity. Precipitation patterns are changing, in some areas increasing in annual rainfall, while other areas are experiencing longer and more extensive drought. Across the nation, the severity of rainfall and storm events is increasing. At the same time, land development, agriculture, and urban sprawl take up more of the natural landscape that previously helped to mitigate and diffuse storm and flood intensity.

Natural benefits of flooding become threats of flooding when not considered in community planning and building design. Lack of proper planning and design results in flooding that is a fearful threat to the life and property of individuals and communities in its path.