Building Resilience in the Built Environment
Julie Eaton Ernst, resilient infrastructure solutions practice leader at HNTB, is at the forefront of advancing projects and programs that help clients and communities prepare for, adapt to and respond to disruptive weather events. Using a risk-based approach, Julie develops resiliency strategies by leveraging data and innovative infrastructure technology — ensuring that the challenges our clients face are met with long-lasting, adaptable solutions.
What are some of the key considerations when designing and managing infrastructure that intersects with the natural environment?
It is essential to consider the built, natural and social environments as interconnected systems. Sustainability aims to mitigate our impact on our environment, while resilience aims to mitigate the effects of extreme events on our built environment, including infrastructure. It's about finding the right balance to manage risk and add value.
Safety is paramount in making traffic and transportation decisions. For instance, the CDC reports that more than 50% of flood-related drownings occur when vehicles drive into flood waters, with the next highest percentage due to walking in or near floodwaters. This alarming statistic highlights the importance of communication, integrating real-time flood data in highway operations and considering flood risk in design projects to prioritize safety for all road users.
Resilience provides opportunities to mitigate risk and enhance our environment's well-being. For example, many of the resilience strategies we identified for the Transit Heat Mitigation Toolkit for Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) aligned with other agency priorities, such as increasing ridership. Urban corridors with limited rights-of-way may not be able to substantially increase vegetation but integrating strategies like shade structures and “cooling paint” murals can reduce urban heat effects and improve wayfinding to transit stops and centers. Engaging communities in identifying, siting and designing solutions is vital for success and raising awareness of environmental risks.
How does HNTB utilize data-informed planning and engineering to help communities prepare for environmental events, and what innovative approaches have been developed?
Characterizing hazards and identifying potential disruptors is critical for resilient infrastructure solutions. We have access to incredible cloud-hosted environmental datasets that weren’t available even five years ago—so we are working to find ways of structuring this data to more seamlessly integrate with infrastructure needs. HNTB has been collaborating with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) through their Industry Proving Grounds (IPG) initiative to connect weather and climate data, products and services to promote resilience in the architecture and engineering sector.
NOAA provides rainfall accumulation data on an hour-by-hour basis for the continental United States, but there is no efficient way to identify maximum rainfall peaks or compare design criteria at an individual location, let alone across tens of thousands of assets and roadways over time. HNTB developed a workflow to restructure this dataset so that we can now search by user-specified coordinates and timeframes, essentially creating a virtual rain gauge at any infrastructure asset.
This methodology, known as our Asset Level Rainfall Analysis Exercise (ALRAE), makes it possible to quantify the severity and nature of wide-ranging events from observed hurricanes to microbursts and understand extremes traditionally outside of model capabilities. ALRAE has opened the floodgates for different environmental datasets, including flash flooding and radar forecasts, to provide not just retrospective data that supports planning and design, but forecasted and near-real-time information that can be integrated into highway operations and improve safety for all road users.
Our approach to resilience is not one-size-fits-all; it is customized to fit the unique needs and existing processes of each client.
– Julie Eaton Ernst
Resilient Infrastructure Solutions Practice Leader
Can you share examples of resilience projects HNTB is supporting and how these projects contribute to building a more resilient future for the communities we serve?
Resilience projects help communities prepare for, adapt and/or respond to shocks and stressors, so they vary broadly in scope. Supporting Massachusetts Department of Transportation (MassDOT’s) Resilience Improvement Plan, HNTB used a decade of findings from completed vulnerability assessments and areas of known vulnerability to create a Resilience Framework that capitalizes on short-term investment strategies as they advance longer-term systematic strategies.
The framework provides a roadmap for effective implementation and integration, aligning with existing MassDOT processes and priorities as well as state and federal policies. We are currently implementing these catalyst actions with MassDOT. Additionally, we are delivering resilient infrastructure solutions for the Cape Cod Bridges Program for MassDOT. This involves conducting early analyses to understand risks associated with varying tides, storm surges, stormwater and wind conditions to assess potential mitigation needs. Through iterative design development, we identify opportunities to build resilience with a measurable return on investment.
How do we partner with our clients to identify risk or implement risk strategies?
The future of transportation is complex and evolving rapidly, and risk mitigation is about managing uncertainty. Our approach to resilience is not one-size-fits-all; it is customized to fit the unique needs and existing processes of each client. By focusing on what disruptions pose the greatest risk, we can identify targeted solutions to integrate resilience into programs, project delivery and operations. By collaborating with the communities we serve, we create opportunities to build value beyond mitigation through resilience.