PEP40700 Risk and Resilience in Built Environments

Academic Year 2017/2018

Changing land uses patterns, climate change, and the ongoing growth of population have exposed the places we inhabit to various risks and environmental challenges. Some environmental risks, further exacerbated by the way we inhabit and behave in our built environments, are likely to become more frequent and damaging in the face of climate change. Therefore two principal challenges facing policymakers as they strive to promote a more sustainable future are concerned with: understanding people's perceptions of, and interaction with, (urban and rural) built environments; and motivating preferable environmental behaviours and actions to promote more resilient built environments. To explore these types of challenges, this module is instructed through problem-based learning and so involves finding solutions to real-world challenges informed by evidence-based research (including that of the instructors and colleagues). These case study problems will illustrate the need for policy makers to manage environmental risks facing built environments by pursuing a mix of policy approaches.

Accordingly this module may be divided into a number of constituent parts:

Firstly, this module will introduce you to various environmental challenges facing built environments;
Secondly, this module will explore key concepts and topics concerned with risk, environmental behaviour, and risk communication;
Thirdly, this module explores water-resource management related case study problems in built environments (e.g. flooding, urban water supply, rural wastewater disposal etc.);
Finally, this module identifies the role that risk management can play in managing environmental risks to improve the resilience of built environments.