Design and construction strategies for buildings at risk from floods

Protection against groundwater and flooding begins in the planning phase. Basements can be coated with bituminous seal to withstand hydrostatic pressure, or the walls themselves can be made of waterproof concrete. For higher specifications both methods can be combined. In all cases attention must be paid to pipework connections and vertical/horizontal junctions. Numerous methods are used to protect buildings against flotation but the expense and effort involved here must be weighed against the alternative of deliberately flooding the basement in an emergency. If that is factored in at the planning stage, then appropriate materials should be chosen for the basement construction.