Costa Rica engineers have eyes on climate change’s effect on infrastructure

SAN JOSE, COSTA RICA – October 15^th, 2012 – Next year, Costa Rica’s Federated Engineer and Architect Professional College (CFIA, in Spanish), will be meeting with the government in order to propose protocols for building public infrastructure capable of confronting the consequences of climate change.

The protocols were developed by Canada in 2005, and have been approved by international organizations such as the United Nations.

Freddy Bolanos, chief of Process Simplification at CFIA, explained that the protocols are a methodology that allows for future projects to be analyzed for vulnerability to climate change events before being built.  The goal is to correct the engineering before such events occur.

Next year’s objective is to establish an agenda with the Planning Ministry so that the infrastructure works that are scheduled will implement the new methodology and protocols.

They also intend to meet with officials from the Costa Rican Electricity Institute

(ICE), and also hope to meet with the Public Works and Transportation Ministry

(MOPT).

A study from the Planning Ministry (Mideplan), revealed that from 1988-2009, natural events have caused Costa Rica losses totaling $1.8 billion – an average of $89 million per year.