Hard questions, concrete solutions: mitigating the ecological impacts of the global infrastructure boom

By 2060, an estimated >230 billion m2 of additional built floor area will be added to the global building stock, equivalent to the built area of Japan each year. Effective tools are urgently required to mitigate the ecological impacts of this global infrastructure boom. In this thesis I explore the effectiveness of one of the most high-profile tools, biodiversity offsetting. I review the implementation and outcomes of biodiversity offsetting around the world, and identify large evidence gaps around its effectiveness. To address these I then evaluate the outcomes of one of the world's oldest biodiversity offsetting systems (Victoria, Australia), and pre-emptively evaluate one of the world's newest compensation systems ("Biodiversity Net Gain", England). Both evaluations indicate that these compensation systems are unlikely to fully mitigate the ecological impacts of development. In Victoria, we find preliminary evidence of self-selection bias undermining the additionality of offsets, and in England, we identify serious governance gaps that leave the majority of the policy's biodiversity benefits unenforceable. Both of these systems implement regulatory offset markets, so I then explore the economics of offsetting regulatory markets, and identify one barrier to their successful implementation may be contradictions between the way that biodiversity needs to be treated to create effective market-like mechanisms, and effective ecological outcomes. Recognising that there may be systemic barriers to biodiversity offsetting fully mitigating the impacts of development, I finally explore whether it is possible to create economies in which the rate of infrastructure expansion is fundamentally slowed. I use the case study of the housing crisis in England to explore whether the projected rates of infrastructure expansion are compatible with national carbon and biodiversity targets, and identify policies that might dampen the drivers behind rapid infrastructure expansion and its ecological impacts. Slowing the rate of infrastructure expansion without sacrificing human wellbeing appears possible, but it faces a daunting political economy

we are archiGRAD!

Staged during the 2013 “Love Architecture Festival”, the “we are archiGRAD!” exhibition featured 20 projects undertaken by archiGRAD between 2010 and 2013 and by the 2012 archiGRAD Summer School. The venue was visited by approx. 1200 people during the exhibition

South Carolina Southeast High Speed Rail Corridor improvement study

The Southeast Rail Corridor was originally designated as a high-speed corridor in Section 1010 of the Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act (ISTEA) of 1991. More specifically, it involved the high-speed grade-crossing improvement program of the Act to reduce or eliminate the hazards of at-grade rail-highway crossings in the designated corridors. It was to connect the southern end of the Northeast Corridor to Charlotte, North Carolina. The high-speed rail grade crossing improvement program was carried over into the Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century (TEA-21) as Section 1103(c). Subsequently, the Southeast High-Speed Rail Corridor (SEHSR) was extended in December 1998 south from Charlotte to Atlanta and Macon, Georgia running through the Upstate of South Carolina. Another branch was added running through Columbia to Savannah, Georgia and Jacksonville, Florida from Raleigh, North Carolina. The Corridor was further extended in October 2000 from Macon to Jessup, Georgia, tying the two branches together. Planning and development of the Corridor is being guided by a four-state coalition: Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia. The goal of the four-state consortium in developing the SEHSR is a top speed of 110 mph. This study and plan is South Carolina's initial examination of the physical feasibility of high-speed passenger rail service in the state