Infrastructure is the foundation of our modern economy and society and essential for its growth. We must ensure that our infrastructure is strong, efficient, and able to withstand the increasingly severe weather events brought on by climate change.
Infrastructure disruptions can significantly affect businesses, education, healthcare, and access to vital services. They ultimately impact the economy, society, and individual lives.
Because most of our infrastructure is built within natural ecosystems, its health and resilience must also be considered.
The “Climate Resilient Infrastructure Report” series, the first of which was published in May 2023, reports progress on the state of climate-resilient infrastructure and showcases best-practice case studies and initiatives from around the world. The report is presented by the International Coalition for Sustainable Infrastructure (ICSI), a global nonprofit dedicated to engineering a more sustainable, just, and resilient future.
This blog post focuses on the second issue of the four-report series, “The Climate Resilient Infrastructure Report: A Focus on Nature.” The report presents over 20 project examples from across the globe, including England, Mozambique, the United States, New Zealand, Australia, Canada, Argentina, and many others. It showcases best-practice examples of nature-based solutions (NbS) in infrastructure and emphasizes their synergy with the natural environment.
NbS delivers wider benefits to society, the economy, and the environment, ranging from carbon sequestration to economic co-benefits and biodiversity.
These infrastructures incorporate, complement, and enhance natural systems, promoting the agenda for resilience and adaptation across infrastructure sectors, including social infrastructure such as schools and hospitals.
Clifton wastewater treatment works
In Yorkshire, England, the Clifton Wastewater Treatment Works is the UK’s first nutrient-reduction integrated constructed wetlands (ICW) designed to treat all flows. The project is intended as an alternative sustainable wastewater treatment works against conventional solutions.
At its core, the project delivers water treatment naturally, avoiding the need for chemical dosing while also breaking down matter on-site, mitigating transport measures, and decreasing pressure on global supply chains.
Clifton comprises five ponds (over 3,000m²), including open-water ponds and shallow vegetated marshes. These provide aerobic and anaerobic environments that sustain a diverse microbial activity and plant life population.
It has achieved operational carbon savings of 79% and embodied carbon savings of 50%, and over 24,000 plants have been used, creating an innovative, low-carbon, ground-breaking nature-based solution.
The project has also produced notable economic outcomes. It was completed within budget, two years ahead of the original plan, with 35% lower costs than conventional building solutions and operational costs 64% lower over its lifetime.
This cost-saving boosts economic growth through reinvestment of savings and passing savings on to the customer. This project is also used as a best practice model for the industry, shaping projects, regulation, and innovation.
Coastal protection in Beira, Mozambique
In 2019, two major cyclones, Idai and Kenneth, hit Mozambique, causing devastating damages and disruptions to infrastructure, the economy, and people’s livelihoods.
These events spurred the mobilization of support to help Beira recover and build resilience to future disasters. Developing a coastal protection strategy is a key component of climate-proofing Beira.
The World Bank and other development partners are financing the implementation of coastal protection measures in Beira for $60 million.
A cost-benefit analysis (CBA) of design alternatives for coastal resilience measures included a combination of grey and green solutions, such as beach restoration and conservation, seawalls, and levees, to prioritize investments in four stretches of Beira’s coastline that are primarily impacted by climate.
Dar Es Salaam urban greening
Dar Es Salaam, a major port city in Tanzania, is expected to double in population by 2050. This growth will pose challenges like flood risks, urban heat, water availability, land degradation, and soil erosion.
A study financed by multiple organizations, including the Tanzania Urban Resilience Program, World Bank, and the Quality Infrastructure Investment Partnership—funded by the Government of Japan—was conducted to explore the benefits of implementing Nature-based solutions in favor of traditional gray infrastructure in Dar Es Salaam.
The study’s findings will guide and inform the development of more resilient urban development and infrastructure plans to address the city’s flooding, water availability, and rising temperature risks.
A combination of greening interventions was selected based on how well they suited each city’s 17 dominant land types. This data enabled quantification of the impacts and benefits of the greening interventions – for example, assessing the potential for flood reduction across the city – while providing a method for visualizing the opportunities that benefit the lives of local people.
The study shows that if the greening projects are implemented, communities will benefit from decreased flooding, urban heat, and soil loss risks by 2030. Additionally, by 2030, approximately 300 Olympic-size swimming pools of rainfall, equivalent to 730,000m³, could be stored in the soil, helping to alleviate depleted groundwater supplies, maintain soil health, and support urban agriculture.
It will also decrease the city’s total average soil loss by approximately 4% or 840,000 tons annually, reducing the negative impacts of sedimentation and land degradation. It will also reduce the average, city-scale urban heat island effect by approximately 1°C, reducing heat stress.
At neighborhood scale in urban areas, the cumulative impact of tree shading can potentially reduce air temperatures by up to 5°C. Additionally, these interventions could make up to 17,000 buildings less susceptible to flooding by 2030.
The project argues that natural systems are essential in Dar es Salaam as it grows. Shifting as much as possible from ‘business as usual’ hard surfaces and gray infrastructure to nature-based solutions can reduce the risk and impacts of future challenges in the city, protect the natural environment, and increase the city’s climate resilience.
Nature-positive engineering approach
The study notes that these examples exemplify the application of the nature-positive engineering approach, a new type of transdisciplinary effort in which engineers stretch their capabilities and work with other specialists, such as ecologists, landscape architects, wildlife experts, and climate scientists, in ways that have yet to be done.
This collaborative approach ensures that infrastructure will be sustainable and resilient for many generations and can cope with future challenges. The report adds that the development of nature-positive infrastructure should not be limited to small pockets of practice but should be embedded in technical standards, guidelines, and approaches across the infrastructure development lifecycles.
These case studies presented here are just three of more than 20 in the report that provide the best examples of nature-based solutions or of building and designing infrastructure in harmony with nature. The natural environment has a wealth of tools that engineers and urban planners can utilize and learn from to create more sustainable and resilient infrastructures.
Source:
The Climate Resilience Infrastructure Report: A Focus on Nature. (2023 December). International Coalition for Sustainable Infrastructure. Retrieved from https://sustainability-coalition.org/publication/the-climate-resilience-infrastructure-report-a-focus-on-nature/
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