Disposable infrastructure including relocatable buildings: Adapting to climate change

Abstract

In Australia most coastal villages, towns and suburbs started as camping areas, fishing shacks and/or holiday houses, all with basic, self-contained infrastructure. As the intensity of development increased, so did the demand for more conventional “permanent” infrastructure. The assumption behind this evolution was that the properties the infrastructure was servicing were going to exist for a long time into the future. Shoreline recession due to sediment imbalances, but more recently also associated with the likely impacts of climate change, places permanent styled coastal development and infrastructure at risk. The problem of managing such a situation is exacerbated by the still poorly defined climate future and hence the uncertainty as to when the infrastructure, and the development it serves, will be impacted. Given this uncertainty, a novel way of approaching the problem is to accept the potentially temporary nature of the real estate and hence adopt an adaptive philosophy of disposable infrastructure and relocatable buildings. The challenge is to provide an acceptable standard of building and infrastructure in areas that may come under threat in the future, and to facilitate the implementation of progressive withdrawal as shoreline recession occurs. This calls for an innovative approach to infrastructure and building design.