Integrated environmental sustainability and resilience assessment model for coastal flood hazards

Methodologies that analyze intersections between resilience and sustainability over a building's lifecycle are important to consider within the context of performance-based design. Life-cycle analysis (LCA) often incorporates building maintenance as part of use-phase environmental impacts; however, hazard-induced repairs are largely ignored. Furthermore, “sustainable” design strategies can lead to more damage and higher life-cycle impacts if the selected materials are less hazard resistant. This study presents an integrated sustainability and resilience assessment model for flood hazards for coastal, single-family residential (SFR) building designs that incorporates a probabilistic procedure for determining flood-related repairs during the useful life of the building and an LCA-based method for measuring the environmental impact of the building considering initial construction and flood-induced repairs. For a case study located in Saint Petersburg, Florida, the model shows that with minor changes in component configuration and materials, environmental sustainability indicators of embodied energy, carbon footprint, and water consumption can be reduced by approximately 40-60% when considering coastal flood damage repairs over a 30 year building life. The case study demonstrates that the model is a useful framework to support effective decision making considering life-cycle environmental impacts within an integrated sustainability and resilience performance-based design construct for residential buildings subjected to flood hazards within coastal areas.