Flood resilience strategies for apartment buildings

Flood-resilient design is the use of engineering solutions, construction techniques and design choices that can withstand substantial and multiple inundations of water to reduce the damages and costs of flooding. Flood-resilient design enables property owners and owners corporations to take action before a flood event, so they can easily clean and quickly return a building to normal function after such an event with minimal long-term disruption.

During a severe weather event, the most common flooding in an apartment building is often in the basement which can damage common services and lead to isolation and outages for extended periods. Building flood resilience within the basement is an effective first step to minimise disruption in future flooding events.

There are many other practical flood resilience techniques that range in price and are suitable for most apartment building types. Investing in resilience measures and retrofitting existing building features can significantly reduce the effort, cost and time to recover from future flood events.

Following the 2022 Brisbane Floods, Brisbane Sustainability Agency has developed comprehensive retrofit guidance for apartment buildings in flood prone areas.

While these materials have been prepared for QLD, the advice is still relevant to buildings in Victoria and across Australia.