EWN - Engineering With Nature

著者: USACE and Story Studio Network
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  • For more than 10 years, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has been working on an initiative called Engineering With Nature that uses natural processes and systems to deliver a broad range of economic, environmental, and social benefits. EWN, as it is called, is developing and implementing nature-based solutions for infrastructure, engineering, and water projects.

    EWN brings together a growing international community of scientists, engineers, and researchers, from all kinds of disciplines to collaborate on how best to harness the power of nature to innovate, solve problems, and create sustainable solutions.

    This podcast tells their stories.

    It’s a show about innovation and collaboration. It is about combining natural and engineering systems. And it is about amazing results for infrastructure, the environment, and communities. Scientists and experts will talk about how they are transforming traditional approaches to infrastructure challenges across the US and around the world by applying the principles and practices of EWN.

    Sarah Thorne of Decision Partners has been working with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers on the EWN initiative for the past decade, and, through this podcast, will share stories of the people, their unique collaborations, and a broad range of projects that exemplify the principles and practices of EWN.
    We hope you’ll listen to the show and be inspired!
    Copyright USACE
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あらすじ・解説

For more than 10 years, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has been working on an initiative called Engineering With Nature that uses natural processes and systems to deliver a broad range of economic, environmental, and social benefits. EWN, as it is called, is developing and implementing nature-based solutions for infrastructure, engineering, and water projects.

EWN brings together a growing international community of scientists, engineers, and researchers, from all kinds of disciplines to collaborate on how best to harness the power of nature to innovate, solve problems, and create sustainable solutions.

This podcast tells their stories.

It’s a show about innovation and collaboration. It is about combining natural and engineering systems. And it is about amazing results for infrastructure, the environment, and communities. Scientists and experts will talk about how they are transforming traditional approaches to infrastructure challenges across the US and around the world by applying the principles and practices of EWN.

Sarah Thorne of Decision Partners has been working with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers on the EWN initiative for the past decade, and, through this podcast, will share stories of the people, their unique collaborations, and a broad range of projects that exemplify the principles and practices of EWN.
We hope you’ll listen to the show and be inspired!
Copyright USACE
エピソード
  • Bending the Bird Curve—A Conversation with Elizabeth Gray
    2024/12/10
    Since 1970, the bird population in North America has declined by about 3 billion birds. In Season 8, Episode 5, host Sarah Thorne and Jeff King, National Lead of the Engineering With Nature (EWN) Program, US Army Corps of Engineers (USACE), are joined by special guest, Dr. Elizabeth Gray, CEO of the National Audubon Society. Elizabeth is an ornithologist and a world-renowned champion of science-based conservation and leads an organization dedicated to protecting birds by altering the course of biodiversity loss. Elizabeth is the first woman CEO of Audubon since its founding in 1905.

    In her lifetime, Elizabeth has seen significant changes in bird populations. “This is just really tragic, and we know two-thirds of those birds are threatened by climate change. When I go out in the field, I see increasing habitat loss and habitat fragmentation. Climate change is a magnifier of all these effects, and birds are indicators of planetary health—really the sentinels and the symbols of how the planet’s doing.”

    Audubon’s 5-year strategic plan, called “Flight Plan,” is designed to “bend the bird curve”—to halt, and ultimately reverse, this decline of birds across the Americas by using science; building strong partnerships; and finding solutions that are positive for birds, for people, and for the planet. “We believe that what birds need—clean water, clean air, a healthy food system, a healthy climate—is also what people need.” Elizabeth notes how these efforts continue a tradition going back to the early 1900s when Audubon began protecting one of the last Reddish Egret rookeries. These efforts grew into Audubon’s Coastal Bird Stewardship program, which now has over 500 sites in coastal areas, 1500 volunteers, and 250 partner organizations.

    Collaboration and partnerships are key to addressing these complex and interconnected issues and Audubon is well known for bringing together unlikely partners, industry, local communities, policy makers, decision-makers, government officials, Indigenous communities, and other conservation organizations. “We often have different priorities, but we’ve found that you can get people who have different priorities, even different values, certainly different approaches, to sit at a table if you can align around the outcome that you want to achieve together.” She adds that birds are Audubon’s “superpower.” “Birds don’t pay attention to geographic boundaries. They don’t pay attention to what divides people or countries and things like that. They’re really the ultimate unifier here. And I think to me, birds remind us of our shared humanity and the fact that we really share this planet.”

    Nature-based solutions (NBS) play a key role in Audubon’s efforts. As Elizabeth notes, NBS can contribute significant greenhouse gas reductions through protecting, restoring, and appropriately managing natural areas, coastal systems, mangroves, grasslands, and forests while also delivering cobenefits to nature and society. Jeff notes the strong synergy and alignment between the mission of Audubon and the objectives of EWN. “With nature-based solutions, we can create resilience while also enhancing habitat and biodiversity and accomplish many more cobenefits. I see so many things that are complementary here, and I’m just excited about what you’re doing and seeing on the horizon within Audubon.”

    For more information and resource links, please visit the EWN Podcast page on the EWN website at https://www.engineeringwithnature.org/
    • Jeff King at LinkedIn
    • Elizabeth Gray at LinkedIn
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    54 分
  • Protecting the Legacy of the Great Lakes – A Collaborative Approach to Coastal Resiliency
    2024/11/26
    When we think about the use of nature-based features to increase coastal resilience, the focus is mostly on coasts along the ocean. But what about the Great Lakes? Over the past 10 years, the Great Lakes have experienced both historic high and low lake levels. These extreme fluctuations cause flooding, erosion, and property damage, often putting people living in communities at risk. In Season 8, Episode 4, host Sarah Thorne is joined by Burton Suedel, Research Biologist in the Environmental Laboratory at the Engineer Research and Development Center (ERDC), US Army Corps of Engineers (USACE), and David Bucaro, Chief of the Planning Branch, Chicago District, USACE. They are discussing the important work underway to make the Great Lakes more resilient to the effects of climate change.

    The Great Lakes play a critical role in the heart of North America and are being affected by climate change, including rapidly changing water levels and less ice coverage. There is a complex interaction between the lakes, land, and atmosphere that make it difficult to model the system. As David notes, this creates high levels of uncertainty in long-term projections of lake levels and challenges for making informed, resilient, and adaptable decisions about needed long-term investments.

    To help better prepare for these future conditions, David and his colleagues are working with other federal agencies, Tribal nations, state and local governments and academic partners, to identify the full range of Great Lakes water levels, wave heights, and ice conditions under a range of plausible climate change scenarios. This is the focus of the 6-year, $14M Great Lakes Coastal Resilience Study (GLCRS), a regional partnership to create a strategy that identifies vulnerable coastal areas and offers an array of potential actions that can be taken to bolster the built natural coastal environments.

    The first step was the development of a shared vision and a basin-wide assessment of vulnerabilities looking at existing populations, infrastructure, habitat, land use, and socially vulnerable populations across all of the Great Lakes coasts. This effort will help communities better understand the frequency and impacts of various climate scenarios and will provide detailed information for planners and engineers, including an assessment of “hotspot areas” more vulnerable to future conditions. The next step will be to identify specific actions for the hotspot areas, which may include a combination of monitoring and further study. The final step will be to produce the Great Lakes Coastal Resiliency Plan, which will include strategic recommendations and prioritize actions for USACE, other federal agencies, states, locals, and other nonfederal interests.

    This effort is complemented by the work that Burton and his team are doing on The Great Lakes Natural and Nature-Based Features Playbook, which is intended to develop new conceptual nature-based designs specific to the Great Lakes that will achieve greater resiliency and adaptability to climate change. The Playbook is intended to be used by planners and NBS practitioners within and outside of USACE to support the planning-level cost-benefit analyses. David and Burton hope the Great Lakes Coastal Resiliency Plan and the EWN Playbook will benefit other regions and advance the practice of NBS.

    For more information and resource links, please visit the EWN Podcast page on the EWN website at https://www.engineeringwithnature.org/
    • Burton Suedel at LinkedIn
    • David Bucaro at LinkedIn
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    39 分
  • Creative Applications of NBS to Protect and Preserve National Parks
    2024/10/22
    In Season 8, Episode 3, host Sarah Thorne and Amanda Tritinger, Deputy National Lead of the Engineering With Nature (EWN) Program, US Army Corps of Engineers (USACE), are joined by Brian Davis, Associate Professor of Landscape Architecture at the University of Virginia (UVA), and Cathy Johnson, Coastal Ecologist, Northeast Region, National Park Service (NPS). Along with their colleagues and collaborators, Brian and Cathy are working with nature and incorporating innovative nature-based solutions (NBS) to combat the significant effects of climate change on three coastal national parks at high risk for extreme storms and rising sea levels.

    Brian is passionate about the opportunity that NBS provides to protect natural resources, while also designing for people—protecting the things we value and the way we use public spaces. “Traditionally a lot of design practices saw those two things as separate. One of the amazing things that’s happening through landscape architecture and EWN and NBS is to unify those things.

    Cathy is passionate about the NPS’s dual mandate of conserving natural resources and preserving cultural resources. “I feel so lucky to work here to preserve values of the NPS for the enjoyment, education, and inspiration of this and future generations.” Cathy notes that NPS’s challenging mandate is made all the more difficult by climate change and its broad scale impacts, especially along the coast.

    About three years ago, Brian and Cathy formed the Preserving Coastal Parklands Team. The idea was to bring together designers and scientists, as well as engineers and other subject matter experts that could work with NPS in these different contexts and develop new nature-based solutions. Brian and Cathy describe projects that they worked on located at the Colonial National Historical Park, Assateague Island National Seashore, and the Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad National Historic Park.

    Asked what they have learned from their experience, both Brian and Cathy note the value of collaboration. “One of the key lessons that we took away” Brian says, “was the value of being able to work with and listen to the people that are managing the landscape—especially the Park staff, but it also other special interest groups, people that go out there for particular reasons, or have some stake in the future of the place and some ideas about it.”

    Amanda reflects on how these examples of NBS can be used by others: “What you and your team are building is a framework for how to approach these issues to achieve the compromise of these multiple needs and multiple benefits. You are creating a framework that ideally could be picked up by others in similar situations.”

    When asked for their calls to action to listeners, Cathy encouraged people to “Visit your parks and the other natural places around you to better understand what’s at risk from climate change and talk to other folks about it.” Brian’s call to action is one of optimism: “Sometimes, especially studying climate change, the scale of the problem can seem daunting. But just being out in these landscapes—meeting the people that work in them and visit them—leads to ideas about preserving those values and understanding better what’s possible in the future. That fills me with optimism.”

    For more information and resource links, please visit the EWN Podcast page on the EWN website at https://www.engineeringwithnature.org/
    • Amanda Tritinger at LinkedIn
    • Brian Davis at UVA
    • Cathy Johnson at ResearchGate
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    57 分

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