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Newsletter
Kerala BRCA (Building Regulatory Capacity Assessment)
GeoHazards International brought together international, national and state-level experts to conduct a BRCA focused on the Government of Kerala’s vision for climate and disaster resilience, energy conservation, and green buildings.
A Kerala home and property damaged by a landslide. Photo: Hari Kumar
The BRCA provided an in-depth assessment of Kerala’s building rules and the status of implementation statewide. Our team’s recommendations were tailored to Kerala’s unique risk and development context.
As Kerala recovered from devastating floods and landslides in 2018, the state government recognized the need to increase resilience to climate change and natural hazards through policy and institutional reforms. Kerala is densely populated, and urban growth increasingly pushes people and development into hazard-susceptible areas.
There are three distinct physiographic zones: a long coastline and coastal lowlands, midlands, and highlands. While exposure intensity differs in each zone and development context, people across Kerala experience floods, landslides, cyclones, coastal erosion, sea level rise, tsunamis, earthquakes, soil piping, drought, and extreme heat.
Our team recommended processes to bring new risk reduction, energy efficiency, green building, fire code administration, and planning/permitting aspects into Kerala’s building and land use regulations. We also highlighted opportunities to build capacities for implementation.
Over time, regulatory reforms can make Kerala’s built environment more sustainable and more resilient. Improving building construction and land use could protect people from future losses. And improving the environmental performance of buildings could reduce future demands for energy, water, and materials.
This project was funded by the World Bank to support resilience goals of the Government of Kerala.