A levee is an embankment structure placed alongside a river to prevent flooding. Conventional riverine infrastructure, such as traditional levees, often reduce the floodplain around a river. Levee setbacks are exactly what they sound like: by moving a levee further back from the riverbank, thereby widening the floodplain, managers can improve flood protection and conserve more of the riverine ecosystem. Levee setbacks can support water quality and supply, as well as habitat restoration. 

N-EWN members have put together a number of helpful tools for stakeholders to learn about and implement natural infrastructure, particularly for river hydrology. Check out some of those tools here:

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Design alternatives for traditional infrastructure are often compared in terms of expected (and often narrowly defined) costs and benefits to justify a selected plan. Taking a broader perspective of the costs and benefits throughout a project’s entire life cycle helps account for potentially rare, indirect, or accruing project benefits. Natural infrastructure differs from traditional projects over time, lifespan, materials, intensity of intervention needs, and social and environmental benefits.

Natural infrastructure uses natural processes to support engineering objectives. N-EWN projects aim to accelerate the transition from ad hoc implementation of NI projects by building spatially explicit NI prioritization tools that allow decision-makers to explore strategic locations for NI solutions, allowing stakeholders to create solutions that meet multiple objectives for people and the environment.

When choosing projects, USACE is required to assess multiple alternative plans and select the project that maximizes net benefits. Comparing net benefits of natural infrastructure to traditional engineering can be difficult: NI often offers a wide range of co-benefits that may be difficult to quantify or monetize, leaving NI projects at a disadvantage in this evaluation process. N-EWN members are working to track USACE’s NI projects and characterize them in a way that fully considers the co-benefits NI can offer, from improving habitat to water filtration.