In the past year, major flood events in the U.S. have resulted in $12 to $15 billion in damages to housing and infrastructure, including damage to approximately 175,000 homes. This trend is expected to continue as climate change continues to impact normal weather, making it more extreme. What can be done to prevent or reduce these damages? We are working with ASTM International and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to develop tools to help address the impacts on coastal and riverine areas.

Partnering to Publish Standards

ASTM International is a global organization that leads the development of voluntary consensus standards to "improve product quality, enhance health and safety, strengthen market access and trade, and build consumer confidence." More than 30,000 of the world's top technical experts from 140 countries work to create test methods, specifications, classifications, guides, and practices for industries including metals, construction, petroleum, and consumer products.

For the past five years, we have been working with FEMA and ASTM International, initially as a subcontractor to URS and now as part of the STARR II joint venture with Atkins and Stantec, to develop two flood damage-resistant materials standards–a test method and a standard practice. The test method provides wetting and drying specifications for conditioning materials before testing. It has been accepted by both the ASTM subcommittee and main-committee and is currently ready for society review. Once it passes society review, it will be published as an ASTM Standard.

Updating Outdated Guidance Material

The standard practice provides specifications and valuation criteria used to determine if the material is acceptable or unacceptable for use under Base Flood Elevation (BFE) conditions. The standard practice is currently in ASTM subcommittee development. As an engineer in Dewberry's resilience solutions group, I (Juan) facilitate the semi-annual subcommittee meetings and develop and revise the standards based on input received during these meetings. Once published, each standard will be referenced by the building codes. Together, they will provide a quantitative approach to evaluate the resistance of construction materials to damages from floods for portions of the building below the BFE. Currently, existing guidance is outdated and limited to FEMA Technical Bulletin 2, which is based primarily on U.S. Army Corps of Engineers research conducted in the 1980s.

When the standards are adopted, manufacturers of building materials will subject the materials and assemblies to the specified testing requirements. Local building officials will use the ratings from the tests to determine what is allowed in construction below the BFE. Based on recent substantial damage estimates that we completed in Texas and Louisiana, we estimate that the use of flood damage-resistant building materials below the BFE could reduce damages to buildings from standing flood waters by as much as 30 to 40 percent. This reduction in damages will prove valuable as climate change continues and floods become all the more prevalent.