Construction Management, Disaster Risk Management and Reconstruction for Resilient and Sustainable Cities

Dear Colleagues,

According to United Nations agencies, the number of people forcibly displaced from their homes has doubled to nearly 100 million (UNHCR) in the last decade, the number of international migrants was 280 million in 2020 - up from 150 million in 1990 (IOM), the average number of disaster events has doubled since 1990 to about 500 per year in 2020 and the economic losses associated with these disasters now averages US$200 billion per year (up from US$100 billion in 1995) (UNDRR). Conflict is also wreaking havoc - the Institute for Economics and Peace estimates that, in Syria alone, conflict has seen 17.5% of the nation's housing destroyed and nearly US$120 billion in damage to infrastructure. In Ukraine, a joint assessment by the World Bank, EU and the Government of Ukraine, estimated the costs of reconstruction and recovery to be US$349 billion in August 2022 and these continue to rise.

Whether we consider drivers (e.g. climate change, mass urbanization, geopolitical and civil tensions), events (the COVID-19 pandemic, earthquakes, storms), effects (social, economic, etc.) or solutions, the Built Environment is at the nexus of all these. Its construction and use are key energy consumers and sources of emissions - representing a third of global final energy use, generating nearly 40% of global greenhouse gas emissions and resource use - consuming half of total raw materials. The destruction, collapse or failure of buildings and infrastructure is often the mechanism by which conflicts are fought and disasters occur so that the human, social and economic costs are directly related to the extent of damage to the built environment. Post-conflict and post-disaster rehabilitation of communities is also inextricably linked to the provision of housing and infrastructure enabling access to (economic, health, education, etc.) services.

Construction management in the context of new facilities, renovation or refurbishment of existing ones or the reconstruction of damaged or destroyed buildings and infrastructure must adapt to address these challenges and deliver the resilient, sustainable and future-proof built environments that we need. In this Special Issue of Buildings, we aim to publish articles that explore and address the challenges and opportunities for positive change towards resilience and sustainability from a construction management perspective.

To this end, we are pleased to invite manuscripts for original research articles and reviews. Research areas may include (but are not limited to) the following:

• Construction management and disaster risk management opportunities and challenges in pursuit of a resilient, sustainable and future-proof built environment.
• Issues and innovations in the management of post-conflict and post-disaster reconstruction.
• Optimisation of whole life social, economic and stakeholder value and utilization of the built environment through the construction and reconstruction processes.
• Implications of climate change, mass displacement, mass urbanization, disasters and conflict on the built environment and the role of construction management in mitigating and responding to these.

We look forward to receiving your contributions.

Prof. Dr. Emlyn Witt
Dr. Abdulquadri Ade Bilau
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Buildings is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.