AIA Course on Flood Protection: What Building Owners Need to Know to Protect their Properties originally appeared in the November/December 2022 issue of Building Design+Construction.
Overview
This course examines numerous flood protection approaches and building owner needs before delving into the flood protection process.
Course Credit
1.0 AIA LU/HSWPROVIDED BY: BD+C
Learning Objectives
After reading this article, you should be able to:
- Explain the numerous flood protection approaches building owners should know before implementing a flood protection plan, as well as understand the risk-associated costs.
- Identify several major approaches to flood protection, and the difference between each.
- Understand the six different areas related to the flood protection project continuum, and how each can impact the flood protection process
- Discern the importance of early warning flood forecasting, and the benefits that forecasting provides.
Historically, flooding is one of the costliest natural disasters in the United States on an annual basis. Flood Insurance Rate Maps (FIRMs) attempt to address area-wide flood risks retroactively and may not reflect increased rainfall intensities or localized street flooding that now occur more frequently.
Proactive owners/operators should understand flood risks from both flood frequency and flood water elevation perspectives. Local flooding in the parking lot cannot be compared to the deluge from a hurricane flooding your building, but the parking lot flooding could still be disruptive. For example, regular high-intensity rain events that enter a building or garage can be disruptive as well as costly. Whether the impacts are frequent or infrequent, flooding can have significant impacts due to lost revenue and operations, costs of repairs, and loss of patronage. This begs: When can a reasonable and proactive investment in flood protection significantly reduce flood recovery costs?
This course examines numerous flood protection approaches and owner needs before delving into the flood protection process. Determining the flood resilience of a property can provide a good understanding of risk associated costs.
Download the PDF of AIA Course on Flood Protection: What Building Owners Need to Know to Protect their Properties.
Login to BDCUniversity to take the exam.
Learn more about flood protection in Walter P Moore’s whitepaper An Introduction to Flood Protection: What Owners Need to Know to Protect Their Properties.
