This is an independent research project carried out by the Birmingham City University (BCU), with the support of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) Research Trust. The main theme of this research concerns Property Flood Resilience (PFR) measures and their use in commercial buildings. According to the Code of Practice, PFR refers to “any measures that can be applied at a property level to make people and their property less vulnerable to the impacts of flooding. They are defined as follows:

Resistance measures: use of materials and approaches to manage water entry into the property. This relates to water exclusion, i.e. keeping water out.

Recoverability measures: use of materials, products and construction methods that prevent the internal fabric of the property from being unduly damaged by floodwater and allow it to recover quickly after a flood.

Either or both types of measures can be used to make a building more resilient.”

This approach has now been established in the UK for helping to improve the resilience of residential properties but has thus far seen very limited application in commercial properties.

This questionnaire seeks to establish your awareness of available PFR measures for commercial buildings, to what extent these have been implemented and their effectiveness in reducing the impacts of flooding. The results of this research will be used to develop guidance to commercial property owners/occupants on how to improve their resilience to flooding using measures and interventions that can be installed within their property.

Your participation in this research is completely voluntary and you can decline to complete this questionnaire. After you complete and return the questionnaire, if you change your mind, the information you provide will be deleted from the research database and therefore not appear in the future publication of this research in any form. The information you provide will be held confidentially by BCU, will not be passed on to any third parties and will appear in the research report in aggregated form only.

The questionnaire has been designed to be completed as easily as possible and should take no longer than 15 minutes. Your contribution to this research project will be much appreciated and valued.

If you require additional information or any clarification, please feel free to contact me by telephone or email. Thank you very much for your cooperation.

Dr Hong Xiao
Senior Lecturer
Programme Leader of MSc Construction Project Management
School of Engineering and the Built Environment
Birmingham City University
Millennium Point
Birmingham B4 7XG
Tel: 0121 3317473
Email: hong.xiao@bcu.ac.uk