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Warmer, Shifting Ground Affects Building Foundations

Building Foundations Affected by Warmer, Shifting Ground

July 19, 2023

CHICAGO IL – Urban areas – potentially places like Pottstown, with aging buildings and infrastructures – face a new “silent hazard,” researchers claim. Climate change may adversely affect their foundations and support systems, according to a study from Northwestern University.

A university team believes it has found “a connection between subterranean climate change and altering terrain beneath metropolitan regions.” The theory: as the ground warms up, it expands and contracts in ways that could create fractures in building foundations. The damage could impact their “long-term operational efficiency and resilience,” it suggests.

The findings, based on work done in Chicago, were published July 11 (2023; Tuesday) in the journal Communications Engineering. Northwestern’s Alessandro Rotta Loria is the study’s lead researcher.

The subsurface movement, Rotta Loria said, is labeled as “ground deformation.” He acknowledged the “phenomenon may not directly jeopardize people’s safety.” However, he reports it “will undoubtedly impact the regular functioning of foundation systems and overall civil infrastructure.”

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There’s also an upside to temperature changes down-under, according to Rotta Loria.

By somehow “harnessing underground waste heat emanating from subterranean transportation systems, parking garages, and basement facilities,” he said, “urban planners could alleviate impacts of subterranean climate change, and simultaneously exploit this heat as an untapped thermal energy resource.”

Photo by Aleksander Solberg on Unsplash, used by Travels With The Post under license

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Local and Regional News

Looking for free local news? Your choices are somewhat limited. See these sources:

The PCTV Network. PCTV, headquartered in Pottstown, provides local television programming in western Montgomery, northern Chester, and eastern Berks counties.

Digital Notebook. Pottstown resident Evan Brandt is the sole reporter for the venerable Pottstown Mercury newspaper. For many years, until February 2022, he offered observations about happenings in the borough and elsewhere. They remain valuable from a historical perspective.

North Penn Now. Covers municipalities primarily within Montgomery County's North Penn School District: Hatfield township and borough, Lansdale, North Wales, Montgomery, Towamencin and Upper Gwynedd.

Montgomery Daily Voice. Covers municipalities in eastern Montgomery County: Abington, Cheltenham, Horsham, Lower Merion, Lower Providence, Montgomery, Upper Dublin, and Upper Merion townships, and Norristown.

MyChesCo. MyChesCo has covered Chester County news since 2017.

Berks Community Television. Covers Berks County.

Spotlight PA. An investigative news service for Pennsylvania, supported by several news organizations statewide.

Philly Voice. Covers Philadelphia and the suburbs.

Travels With The Post does not endorse, and is not affiliated with, any of these websites.

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