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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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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IRIS affiliates file comments on USACE proposed Agency Specific Procedures
Originally published here by UGA’s Institute for Resilient Infrastructure Systems. Article by Yee Huang, UGA. IRIS affiliates are contributing their expertise as the US Army Corps of Engineers updates its policies for evaluating potential new civil works projects. The Corps recently proposed new Agency Specific Procedures (ASPs) to implement the Principles, Requirements, and Guidelines (PR&G). IRIS Director Brian Bledsoe, along…
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Partner Podcasts: Resilience in the Past… and to the Future!
This month, our partners’ podcasts looked backwards and forwards at resilience practices! The Resilient Futures Podcast – Expect the Unexpected: Resilience and Life Advice from the Late Bronze Age On the Resilient Futures Podcast, produced by the University of Georgia’s Institute for Resilient Infrastructure Systems, hosts Alysha Helmrich and Todd Bridges welcomed anthropologist and historian…
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