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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Duke hosts summit focused on extreme heat solutions
Duke University’s Heat Policy Innovation Hub recently hosted their inaugural HeatWise Policy Partnership Summit, convening more than 100 leaders from across sectors to identify ways to make communities more heat resilient. The three-day summit included finance and insurance companies, federal and state officials, foundation officers, Duke faculty and community organizers, including our partners at Duke’s…
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Special Nature at Work: Hurricane seasons are changing. What does that mean for coastal communities?
Featured image: June 30, 2024 – Hurricane Beryl was pictured east of Barbados as a Category 3 storm from the International Space Station as it orbited 263 miles above the Atlantic Ocean. Via NASA. On Friday, June 28, the National Hurricane Center began advisories on Tropical Depression Two, east of Barbados. Within 48 hours, it…
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EWN Podcast hosts series “Conservations on Climate Change” with Katharine Hayhoe, TNC
The Engineering With Nature Podcast, hosted by Sarah Thorne and EWN Director Jeff King, has a talent for taking on important topics in the overlap between engineering and environmental science. This summer, they welcomed Katharine Hayhoe, Chief Scientist of The Nature Conservancy (TNC) for “a conversation on climate change that was so deep and wide…
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