Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
technology focused on adapting to climate change and reducing biodiversity loss
that is regenerative of ecosystem health.
Responses to the direct impacts of climate change have a number of benefits
and associated difficulties. They are helpful for a gradual response to the impacts
of climate change, particularly if the financial resources needed to research,
develop and test technologies continue to be available. They require accurate
knowledge of what the impacts of climate change will be for a given site over
time, which is difficult to predict accurately in many cases. A benefit of this
approach is that technologies and architectural responses to direct impacts may be
transferable to other places with similar issues. The biomimetic system based on
the Namib beetle described above may be useful for small island communities or
coastal areas that have difficulties sourcing fresh water, exacerbated by climate
change for example. An additional benefit of the process of developing techno-
logical solutions for individual buildings is that it fits into the current method of
extending and renewing the built environment, which is typically a building-
by-building or addition-by-addition process over time. This means it may be
suitable for a gradual retrofitting of the existing built environment.
Developing individual technologies or even whole buildings to deal with the
myriad of direct climate change impacts on the built environment does not how-
ever ready the built environment for unpredicted changes or indirect climate
change impacts. Focusing solely on adapting the built environment to the direct
impacts of climate change also does not address multiple concurrent impacts. The
challenge of other related drivers of change is also not tackled, which may in the
long run be of greater consequence to the built environment and to humanity as a
whole (Atkinson
2007a
). Understanding local built environments as whole systems
in terms of their strengths and weaknesses and utilising these to create greater
resilience may be a more effective way to plan for unpredictable future climatic
changes.
4.4.2 Systemic Improvement of the Built Environment
Ecosystems are typically resilient and many are able to move though infrequent
abrupt changes while still supporting the survival of organisms (Gunderson and
Holling
2002
). The ability of ecosystems to adapt to the rapid changes that may
come about due to climate change is difficult to predict however (Walther et al.
2002
). Despite this, mimicking ecosystems can offer insights into how the built
environment could function more like a system than as a set of unrelated object-
like buildings, and thus become better able to adjust to change. An aspect of
ecosystems which enables them to successfully adapt to constant change comes
from the fact they are made up of organisms and processes that are in close
relationships. High diversity in terms of these relationships between organisms
typically leads to increased system redundancy, and results in a greater ability for
the whole system to adapt to change.
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