Here’s a great way to solving the flooding crisis for those who live next to water … homes that can rise with any floods.
The Guardian has just done a great feature showing an ingenious way around the problem.
The Met Office’s UK Climate Projections report warns that coming decades would see a triple whammy of rising summer temperatures, rising sea levels and more extreme weather such as flash floods.
More than one in 10 of the new homes built in England in 2016-17 are in areas the Environment Agency deems at risk of flooding and urges housebuilders to construct homes that are more flood-resistant such as adding watertight flood doors and thicker, more waterproof membranes in the walls.
Building homes that aren’t just resistant but immune to flooding could allow developers to build safely on land currently dismissed as unviable because it has a high flood risk.
Dutch architects have designed houses that have a buoyant, air-filled concrete base instead of conventional foundations anchoring them to the ground. Some are even intended to float full-time and are bound together to form floating communities that sit on the water.
Others are amphibious, designed to sit on terra ferma most of the time but able to float safely in the event of flooding … but well moored.
In the UK floodplain land is cheap so technology that enables homes to be built safely in areas that were previously off limits could make business sense for private developers and spur the construction of thousands of affordable, unfloodable homes.
For more on this go to https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/aug/17/how-to-build-a-climate-proof-home-that-never-floods