Final Research Report Part 3: Maintenance and resilience of buildings for flood risks

SBEnrc project P1.53 Resilient Buildings: Informing Maintenance for Long-term Sustainability aimed to examine the role of maintenance in making buildings more resilient to extreme weather events, cyclones/storms, bushfires and floods, using technical knowledge to inform policy and practice. The focus was on existing low-rise public buildings. Part 3 examines building resilience for flood extremes, and considers building losses, regulation, risk assessment and the role of maintenance in reducing risk.

Key recommendations are:

1. All properties (including buildings and landscaping) in flood prone areas should be maintained through continuous monitoring and routine maintenance of critical components.
2. Maintenance checklists of critical components for the properties should be developed. These need to be integrated with appropriate databases and systems for routine/continuous condition monitoring and maintenance decisions for flood resilience. The checklist should cover building structural elements (e.g. foundations, floors, walls and roofs), utilities and non-structural fixtures (e.g. drains, gutters, plumbing and electrics) and landscape architecture within the property.
3. Strict regulatory controls for building permits and ‘mature’ governance of maintenance for flood resilience need to be developed.
4. All new designs should include responsible design for maintainability, embracing flood resistance and/or flood resilience aspects. In addition, responsive construction and maintenance should be considered, embracing relevant flood resilient technologies and materials in new constructions and retrofitting of existing ones for resilience.
5. Flood resilient planning agendas should be developed for new developments and maintaining existing building assets.
6. A ‘smart’ systems approach with development of maintenance manuals, smart systems and integrated databases linked with building information and lifecycle cost-based predictive/ decision-support models is required for futureproof resilience for flood vulnerabilities.
7. As a non-mandatory arrangement for foolproof flood resilience, certifications for the maintenance supply chain and flood resilience products/materials could be considered.