Get to know N-EWN
A community of researchers, practitioners, and educators working together to advance the practice of natural infrastructure.
We work across four main branches
In order to help facilitate the widespread adoption of natural infrastructure practices across the United States, we’ve identified four main areas that need additional work:
Developing methods and standards
New tools, techniques and guidance are needed to effectively plan, design, construct and operate natural infrastructure at different scales
Assessing benefits and costs
Natural infrastructure provides communities with a broad array of economic, environmental and social benefits. Improved approaches are needed to evaluate, quantify and forecast these benefits to support planning and decision making
Monitoring performance and outcomes
Technically sound, efficient and applicable methods are needed to track natural infrastructure performance over time, develop the evidence base for future designs, ensure compliance with policy and inform project operations and adaptive management
Integrating people and policy
Providing infrastructure that supports human wellbeing and equitably meets the needs of diverse communities requires integration of human values, attitudes, beliefs, perceptions and policies with modern communication and collaboration practices
Combining a diversity of on-the-ground experience with interdisciplinary teams.
The N-EWN community is made up of over 30 partners from industry, academia and the non-profit sector.
What N-EWN’s been up to:
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Story map: At what scale does natural infrastructure make the biggest impact?
N-EWN researchers Dr. Matt Bilskie (Assistant Professor in the College of Engineering, University of Georgia) and Dr. Amanda Tritinger (Research Hydraulic Engineer with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers) and their team of collaborators set out to find out. It can be difficult to assess the real-world impacts of a natural infrastructure project, so the…
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September 2021 Knowledge Series: Characterizing USACE EWN Projects
Brook Herman, USACE This presentation reviews the current EWN ProMap and how proposed changes to the online database will increase our ability to track and assess how well projects are contributing to multiple environmental, economic, and social benefits. Proposed changes to the data entry field include information on what assessment methods were used to calculate…
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Next week: Kicking off the N-EWN Knowledge Series with Brook Herman!
The Network for Engineering with Nature (N-EWN) invites you to join us for The N-EWN Knowledge Series: A Continuing Education Series about Engineering with Nature. The next webinar will be held on Tuesday, September 21 at 12:30 EST at which Brook Herman (PhD, USACE-ERDC) will be sharing about characterizing USACE EWN projects and progress on…
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