Sustainable Building Practices on Lagos Coastlines: Professional Awareness and Lifecycle Integration
Akinsiku, O. E..
Department of Quantity Surveying, University of Lagos, Yaba, Lagos State, Nigeria.
DOI: 10.36108/laujoces/6202.61.0231
Abstract
Climate risks are typically extreme for buildings in coastal communities, threatening their performance, resilience and sustainability. Strategies for mitigating climate change remain heterogeneous, particularly in developing countries of the Global South. This study examines the gap between professional knowledge and on-site implementation of climate resilience in the management of construction projects along coastlines, using buildings in the Lekki area of Lagos State, Nigeria, as a case study. A quantitative, cross-sectional survey was conducted with 200 construction professionals. Descriptive statistics were employed to evaluate the awareness of key attributes of building resilience and to analyse the extent to which resilience is taken into account across the project’s phases. Results showed that foundation instability (89%), maintenance costs (75%), and material deterioration (60%) were major climate threats. Recovery had the highest resilience awareness, while planning (60%) and design (50%) showed the greatest integration. High resilience awareness (56.5%) was reported, with no significant differences among professionals. The results further indicate moderate to high climate risk awareness and climate principles of resilience, especially robustness, recovery, and adaptability. It was also found that professionals’ integration of resilience is significantly concentrated during the planning and design phases; however, this wanes during the execution, handover, and post-construction phases. Conventional engineering solutions predominantly define the implementation strategy, whereas redundancy and nature-based solutions remain constrained. The study concludes that the main
barrier to coastal construction is not a lack of awareness but the failure of current project delivery systems to maintain the resilience intent throughout a project’s life cycle. The results indicate the importance of adopting a life-cycle approach to integrate resilience, targeted capacity development, and institutional support, thereby enhancing the climate resilience of coastal infrastructure in rapidly urbanising cities such as Lagos.
Keywords: Awareness, Climate change, Coastal construction, Resilience, Practice.