Energy and Water Interventions That Contribute to the Climate-Proofing of Buildings on Multiple Scales: A Literature Review

Abstract

In the framework of planning and designing resilient housing under a changing climate, the present study constitutes a comprehensive literature review exploring climate-proofing solutions for the built environment concerning energy supply and water availability. This study delved into a multitude of sources that included scientific papers and reports and European Union guidelines and tools. The identified solutions covered building, urban, and territorial scales. The hazards of interest included heatwaves, heavy precipitation, droughts, earthquakes, wildfires, and storms. Several types of solutions were found (e.g., nature-based, education/capacity-building, engineering/built environment, etc.) with different times of application and timescales of action (e.g., defensive measures, short-term solutions, long-term adaptive, etc.). The maturity of the identified solutions was assessed based on the Technology Readiness Level (TRL) and Societal Readiness Level (SRL). Moreover, each solution’s contribution to climate mitigation was investigated. The solutions were assessed in terms of self-sustainability and other key criteria, namely, effectiveness, contribution to resilience maturity and climate change mitigation, adaptive nature, financing access, risk reduction, and social cohesion. In total, 85 energy and water solutions were determined from the desk review analysis and 67 (30 for the energy sector and 37 for the water sector) solutions were finally retained and proposed.

Keywords

• energy
• water
• interventions
• climate-proofing
• building
• urban