Life cycle assessment of a typical European single-family residence and its flood related repairs

Floods are a constant threat to ecosystems, humans, infrastructure and assets. The combination of increased urbanization and rising sea levels makes it a concern of increasing societal importance. This study offers a new perspective on environmental impact assessment of flood related repairs related to a single-family residence using life cycle assessment.

A typical European house built in the 2010's is modelled in the life cycle assessment framework with focus on items damaged by a flood. Flood damage is assessed on the detail level of the house's different components using flood depth as the indicator of damage level. A life cycle inventory is built individually for each considered item group affected by flooding.

The influence of flood depths and house ages are studied. The results show that the main impacts of flood related repairs come from the replacement of the wooden flooring, the water heater and furniture. Overall, flood related repairs add between 3.5 and 17.8% of environmental impacts to the life cycle of the house depending on house age and flood depth; deeper water and bad timing in relation to maintenance cycles causing more impacts.

Moreover, a very high positive correlation between environmental and economic impact is found in most impact categories.