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:

  • N-EWN Knowledge Series: Remote Sensing Capabilities to Support EWN Projects

    N-EWN Knowledge Series: Remote Sensing Capabilities to Support EWN Projects

    Join us this Thursday, May 16 at 12:30pm ET for the next N-EWN Knowledge Series: Remote Sensing Capabilities to Support EWN Projects. The speakers for this month are from USACE ERDC’s Environmental Lab: There is an increasing opportunity and number of EWN® projects seeking support to use remotely sensed data and geospatial methodologies to help quantify…

  • Nature At Work: Are these cicadas magicians or mathematicians?

    Nature At Work: Are these cicadas magicians or mathematicians?

    Depending on where you live, you might have noticed a new winged critter popping up… everywhere. Don’t worry! Despite their giant, buzzing wings, unending eerie song, and those bright red eyes, cicadas aren’t here to do any harm. And this year, they’re actually a natural event you won’t want to miss. These cicadas are known…

  • New publication: Human well-being and natural infrastructure

    New publication: Human well-being and natural infrastructure

    In a new paper published in Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution, authors from the U.S. Army Engineer Research & Development Center (ERDC) explore the psychological, physiological, medical, and social benefits to humans of exposure to nature, and how natural infrastructure (NI) projects can take these into account to continue to deliver those benefits. The authors…

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