The Network for Engineering With Nature (N-EWN) convened for the first N-EWN Partner Symposium on May 22nd-24th, which served as an opportunity for the network’s partners to come together in person.
The Symposium was an unmitigated success: with over 170 attendees from 28 partner organizations, participants had the opportunity to forge deeper connections while learning about the inspiring work each partner is engaged in.
Held in St. Augustine, Florida, the symposium consisted of one and a half days of plenaries, project-oriented talks, panels, and a poster session. After the second day of talks, participants had the opportunity to join field trips, which included visiting a cross section of a local barrier island, exploring the Guana River Marsh’s aquatic preserve, a pontoon boat ride to tour the UF Center for Coastal Solutions’ field experiment sites, a visit to the local dunes with a touch of policy and hurricane history on the side, and a guided walking tour of downtown St. Augustine’s resilience projects and features.
The convening was an exciting opportunity to discuss the work that needs to be done in the arena of nature-based systems, and to organize collaboration on a broad scale to accelerate adoption throughout the United States. As Amanda Tritinger, deputy program manager for the US Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) Engineering With Nature (EWN) Program, put it: “This is our chance to turn gaps in knowledge into opportunities for advancement.”
We’d like to offer a huge thanks to our hosts, the University of Florida’s Center for Coastal Solutions, and to our sponsors: Stantec, University of Florida’s Herbert Wertheim College of Engineering, the Center for Coastal Climate Resilience at UC Santa Cruz, AECOM, the Center for Coastal Solutions at the University of Florida, the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at the University of Florida, St. Augustine Ponte Vedra, San Antonio River Authority, the University of Arkansas, the University of Oklahoma’s College of Engineering, SeaGrant Florida, Arizona State’s CASCADE, Duke University, ByWater Institute at Tulane University, Moffatt & Nichol, Anchor QEA, ECONCRETE, Biohabitats, LimnoTech, the Center for Restoration of Ecosystems and Watersheds at the University of Oklahoma, and the Institute for Resilient Infrastructure Systems at the University of Georgia.
Explore more photos from the event in our Google Drive here.
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