EWN - Engineering With Nature USACE and Story Studio Network

Imagine restoring a 51-mile-long concrete river—running through the heart of the Los Angeles Basin in California—into a vibrant corridor reconnecting fractured communities and ecosystems. In Season 7, Episode 7, host Sarah Thorne and cohost Amanda Tritinger from the US Army Corps of Engineers talk with landscape architects Alex Robinson from University of Southern California (USC) and Leslie Dinkin from the Kounkuey Design Initiative in Los Angeles. They discuss the use of storytelling, augmented reality, and physical modeling tools to engage people along the river in cocreating a new future for themselves and for the river.

Leslie recently graduated with dual master’s degrees in landscape architecture and heritage conservation from USC, studying under Alex and working with him at the Los Angeles River Integrated Design Lab (LA-RIDL).

Alex’s work is rooted in his personal experiences with the City of Los Angeles (LA) and its infrastructure, including the LA River, and finding out how people spend their days interacting with these interesting landscapes. Fresh out of graduate school in 2005, Alex worked on the Los Angeles River Revitalization Master Plan, one of the first of many plans for the river that tried to bring different values into the thinking about how to transform the river into something more than just an instrument of flood control. He has continued this focus with the realization that, “We were constrained by so many voices and different constituents, all speaking different languages. I thought, what if we could create a platform where we had a more collective understanding, where people could begin to speak the same language and were able to cocreate something.”

This led Alex to reach out to the USACE Engineer Research and Development Center (ERDC), which has hydrology modeling in its toolset. As Amanda notes, “You can see how this just clearly aligns with Engineering with Nature. At ERDC, we have numerical and physical models, but how do we get our models to talk to people? I think Leslie and Alex have done a really great job in not only creating that connection but making it meaningful.”

The product of this collaboration with Duncan Bryant, Research Hydraulic Engineer, and his colleagues at ERDC’s Coastal Hydraulics Laboratory (CHL), was the development of a physical model of a section of the LA River with adjacent land owned by the city where there is an opportunity for big changes. As Alex explains, “This is the crown-jewel opportunity for changing the LA River.” To take the engagement with the model to the next level and produce something that invites people to participate in the process, Alex and his colleagues developed an augmented reality component to visually overlay information on top of the physical model. “It lets people interact—a community member can come in and make a comment, draw something, and that becomes input an engineer and a landscape architect can consider in their design process.”

Thinking about how advanced visualization tools support community engagement, Alex says, “I think the model and all the different tools we’ve developed have created this incredible common ground for people to have a conversation and have their ideas and values represented in the system.”

Amanda truly appreciates the work that Alex and Leslie are doing: “If I could just represent all of engineers for a minute, I’d like to say, thank you. Thank you for helping us communicate.”

For more information and resource links, please visit the EWN Podcast page on the EWN website at https://www.engineeringwithnature.org/  

•      Amanda Tritinger at LinkedIn
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Imagine the possibilities if brilliant scientists and engineers could figure out how to use natural materials like silt and clay, dredged from waterways, to make nature-inspired, 3D printed structures like reefs and roots to restore habitat and protect coastal shorelines. In Season 7, Episode 6, host Sarah Thorne is joined by Al Kennedy, Burton Suedel, and Andrew McQueen from the US Army Corps of Engineers (USACE), Engineer Research and Development Center (ERDC). All three are Research Biologists in the Environmental Laboratory at ERDC. They’re discussing the 3D printing workshop they hosted in February 2024 to explore the potential of nature-inspired 3D printing. As a special feature of this episode, several of the workshop participants share highlights from the workshop discussions and the inspiration for their future work. 

The Corps dredges more than 200 million cubic yards of sediment from navigable waterways every year. In Season 5, Episode 6, Lieutenant General Spellman, USACE Commander and Chief of Engineers, spoke about his 70/30 goal–achieving 70% beneficial use of dredged material by 2030. 3D printing can enable new and novel ways to use sediment as a resource and improve the Civil Works’ mission delivery, unlocking some of the constraints on traditional infrastructure engineering by using simple bioinspired design, leveraging natural geometries to produce more pleasing recreational uses, improved ecological functionality, plus economic and social benefits.

The workshop was a key step in advancing the potential of 3D printing by bringing together a diverse group of experts from government, academia, and the private sector to explore the potential of 3D printing using natural materials. Workshop breakout groups focused on four major research areas:
Ecosystem restoration and bioinspired designCoastal resilience and sustainabilitySediment propertiesScaling up  Key discussions and takeaways from the workshop, include: 
The importance of being more intentional with infrastructure design, incorporating nature-inspired features to leverage optimizations from nature, and delivering multi-functional materials that offer co-benefits like habitat enhancement alongside primary infrastructure objectives.Discussions on the properties of natural materials and their performance in 3D printers, including stability of end products, and the potential need for pre- and post-processing to meet requirements.Exploring and innovating the best applications for 3D printed materials, such as using dredged material from confined disposal facilities (CDFs) for ports and coastal areas, enhancing community resilience with new or rehabilitated infrastructure like berms.The necessity for maturation and scaling up of 3D printing applications, transitioning from lab-scale to larger format printers suitable for field use, encompassing nozzle design and managing available dredge material for use.The potential safety benefits of using 3D printing to automate infrastructure production in hazardous work environments. Synergy, engagement, and collaboration was evident throughout the workshop, and participants expressed a strong interest in continuing the dialogue. A report on the workshop results will be available on the EWN website.

For more information and resource links, please visit the EWN Podcast page on the EWN website at https://www.engineeringwithnature.org/  
Burton Suedel at LinkedInAlan Kennedy at LinkedIna href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/mcqueenandrew"...

Innovation and collaboration are cornerstones of Engineering With Nature (EWN). Sharing projects, demonstrating outcomes, and inspiring practitioners around the world is an important part of advancing EWN. The EWN Atlas series, initiated in 2018, has been key to showcasing the incredible work happening around the world. Season 7, Episode 5, kicks off the launch of EWN Atlas, Volume 3. Host Sarah Thorne is joined by cohost Burton Suedel, Research Biologist at the Engineer Research and Development Center, USACE, and Zelini Hubbard, Senior Project Manager at Anchor QEA and Project Manager for Atlas 3.

The EWN Atlas series demonstrates the power of EWN in action, highlighting projects that exemplify EWN concepts, principles, and practices. Each Atlas is organized in chapters, presenting projects in various environmental contexts—beaches and dunes, wetlands, islands, reefs, riverine systems, and floodplains—as well as chapters on specific project types, such as the use of vegetation and natural materials, and environmental enhancements of existing infrastructure. Sarah spoke with five contributors to Atlas 3 whose projects exemplify the quality of EWN projects being implemented around the world:  

Cathy Lear is a Senior Habitat Biologist at Clallam County. The Lower Dungeness River Project she led is in Clallam County, WA. This project incorporated nature-based solutions (NBS) to restore a floodplain. 

Mary Kate Brown is Assistant Coastal Programs Director for The Nature Conservancy in Alabama. She talks about how the Lightning Point Restoration Project in Bayou La Batre, AL, used green and gray infrastructure to revitalize a culturally important shoreline.  

Samantha Belcik is a Biologist and Planner with the Chicago District, USACE. She describes the Fort Sheridan Project in Lake County, IL, which used historical native plant ecotypes and natural processes to restore a coastal ecosystem.  

Zoe Elliott Perkins is a Senior Coastal Engineer on the Beaches Team for the City of Gold Coast in Queensland, Australia. She was part of the team on the Palm Beach Artificial Reef Project in Palm Beach, Queensland, Australia, which constructed an artificial reef to provide coastal protection and recreational resources.  

David Johnston is a Project Engineer and Acting Team Lead in the Waterways Section of the USACE Huntington District. He led the Ohio River Bonanza Bar Project in Portsmouth, OH, which used dredged material beneficially to create ecological habitats and restore the historical footprint.  

Burton and Zelini hope Atlas 3 gets wide use. As Zelini notes, “All 58 projects really do provide interesting examples of how NBS are being applied to a broad range of challenges. I think it’s a real feat that the work of so many has been distilled down into a digestible and readable document.” Burton agrees, adding, “What we’re striving to do is to share best practices worldwide, inspire actions in others, foster the confidence in our collective vision and encourage others to incorporate NBS into their infrastructure projects.” 

Jeff King, Lead of the EWN Program, notes that: “Atlas 3 really reflects the best of the best work being done by colleagues across USACE and around the world.” Jeff thanks the entire team that worked on Atlas 3, and all the contributors and adds, “I’d like to personally invite all our listeners to check out Atlas 3, and all of the wonderful work being done—it will be available in May 2024. I hope all our listeners and readers will be inspired by the projects we’re featuring.” For more information and resource links, please visit the EWN Podcast page on the EWN website at...

It’s old home week and time to get the original EWN Podcast gang back together. In Season 7, Episode 4, host Sarah Thorne is joined by cohost Jeff King, National Lead of the Engineering With Nature Program (EWN), and our friend, colleague, and inspiration behind the Engineering With Nature Program, Todd Bridges. Todd is now Professor of Practice in Resilient and Sustainable Systems in the College of Engineering at the University of Georgia (UGA). A lot has happened since February of 2023 when we celebrated Todd’s 30-year career with the US Army Corps of Engineers (USACE), where in addition to being Senior Research Scientist for Environmental Science, he founded and was the first National Lead of the EWN Program. 

Having taken only a month off after leaving USACE, Todd says that he “failed at retirement. I’m as busy now, if not more so, than I was before. But I think a ‘busy life’ is a ‘happy life.’” For Todd, change is inevitable and keeps one energized: “I wouldn't trade the 30 years that I was blessed to have with the Corps of Engineers for anything. It was vastly fulfilling in so many ways, on so many levels. But change is necessary, and I’ve been enjoying embracing the change and continuing to do whatever I can to make a difference.”

We discussed some of the highlights of Todd’s busy first 11 months at UGA where he is teaching and advising engineering students about natural infrastructure, and has his first graduate student, Scott Blackstock, a Captain in the US Army who will focus his research on nature-based solutions. Todd is also podcasting at UGA, cohosting the Resilient Futures Podcast with Dr. Alicia Helmrich, an assistant professor in the College of Engineering. The Resilient Futures Podcast focuses on what it takes to create resilience in a variety of different contexts.

In addition to his teaching and advising, Todd has continued to spread the word on EWN and nature-based solutions (NBS) in many forums, including: participating in two summits hosted by the White House—the Invest in Nature Summit and the Climate Resilience Summit as well as being selected as one of 11 lead authors on the United States’ first National Nature Assessment to lead development of the chapter on “Nature and the Safety and Security of the United States.”

Todd continues to be active in the Network for Engineering With Nature (N-EWN), which he cofounded with Brian Bledsoe in 2018. As Todd explains, “Progress runs on the rails of relationships. I’m very encouraged by what I’m seeing in the growth. Today we have more than 25 partners that are committing their own sweat equity to a wide range of N-EWN initiatives.” In February 2024, Todd and Jeff participated in the Policy Forum for Nature-Based Solutions in Washington DC, sponsored by N-EWN and the National Academies’ Gulf Research Program. The Policy Forum brought together a diverse array of stakeholders, including policymakers, regulators, practitioners, academics, and others. It provided a platform for rich discussions on the transformative potential of nature-based solutions across various sectors.

Jeff and Todd are both energized by the growing acceptance of nature-based solutions. As Jeff notes, “Five years ago, nature-based solutions were not ubiquitous. Today we’re constantly talking about NBS, and more and more NBS projects are coming online.” Todd agrees: “There’s been a convergence of thinking—an alignment of need and opportunity that we need to capitalize on now if we want to really make a difference for the country and for communities.”  He adds, “The future is very bright for Engineering With Nature.”

For more information and resource links, please visit the EWN Podcast page on the EWN website at https://www.engineeringwithnature.org/  

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Our guest is a scientist and innovator who brings new thinking and new applications of nature-based solutions (NBS) into her work every day. In Season 7, Episode 3, host Sarah Thorne is joined by cohost Jeff King, National Lead of the Engineering With Nature Program (EWN), and Julie Beagle, Environmental Planning Section Chief for the USACE San Francisco District. Julie joined USACE three years ago desiring to make the biggest impact possible. Jeff notes that, since then, Julie’s leadership on EWN has been absolutely outstanding and her passion for NBS to address a whole range of projects in the San Francisco Bay and throughout the district is inspiring. She’s moving the needle when it comes to advancing the practice of integrating NBS into project decision-making.

Julie began her career as a field scientist working in rivers all day, on a job that let her be outside doing science. As a geomorphologist, she studied how sediment and water shape the surface of the earth. In her early career, she focused on protecting salmonid species in northern California and assisted communities in restoring rivers and explored landscape management strategies to better protect and integrate habitats. Then she worked her way downstream into more engineered flood-control channels working on issues related to water quality and the interaction of land use and development. She notes that, “over the last 15 years, climate change became the driver. I became focused on how landscapes, people, species, and ecosystems are going to adapt to this changed reality.”

As Julie describes it, the whole watershed connects. What happens in the upper watershed influences what happens down in the floodplains, tidal marshes, down to the bay and the outer ocean. “It really helped me understand this entire landscape that we have modified and are now having to adapt for all the benefits that we need from our ecosystems and lands. We have to take a landscape approach, and that’s why Engineering With Nature really resonates for me.”

One of the projects that Julie worked on right before coming to USACE was the San Francisco Bay Shoreline Adaptation Atlas: Working with Nature to Plan for Sea Level Rise Using Operational Landscape Units. This publication helps communities identify different adaptation strategies that take advantage of natural processes. Julie has translated her experience to what she is doing for USACE today with the opportunity to work in different areas and across jurisdictions. “I’ve been focused on San Francisco Bay for a long time, but I’m really excited about all these other estuaries starting to think about this Adaptation Atlas–type approach. We can help them develop these same types of toolkits and then make that connection to the dredge material that the Army Corps produces across the entire West Coast.”

Jeff notes the importance of taking what is being demonstrated in the San Francisco District and replicating it across the country. “What Julie is doing in the San Francisco District has a lot of value. We want to capture that and share the learnings and experiences you’re having as an EWN Proving Ground with the rest of the Corps enterprise.” Leveraging her role as the EWN Lead in San Francisco District, Julie’s goal is “to make NBS just part of the fabric of the way we do business.” Jeff agrees, “I want this to be something that we use time and time again. NBS should become integrated into all our project decision-making. That is real culture change, and Julie’s leadership is a great example.”

For more information and resource links, please visit the EWN Podcast page on the EWN website at https://www.engineeringwithnature.org/

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Nature-based solutions (NBS) are of growing interest in many parts of the world as scientists, engineers, policymakers, and others look for new ways to address climate change challenges. In S7, E2, host Sarah Thorne is joined by EWN cohosts Burton Suedel, and Amanda Tritinger. Their guest is Paul Cruz, Sr. Program Manager in International and Interagency Services in the USACE’s Pacific Ocean Division. They’re talking about advancing NBS by building relationships with colleagues in the Pacific region.

With a military background and experience in planning and security cooperation, Paul describes his work as: “I tell people I went from the 8-crayon box set to the 200-crayon box set with a pencil sharpener on the back, working with all these scientists, engineers, and research personnel on new and exciting topics and capabilities that we bring to the table as we engage our allies and partners all around Asia. And certainly EWN was one of those capabilities.”

While assisting the Philippine Navy with dredging efforts for their Navy Bases, Paul met with the Philippine Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH). “We took advantage of the opportunity to support their dredging challenges because it was helping facilitate the military side, and we started to see a real growing relationship between the USACE and the DPWH—two agencies that have a lot of the same mission sets.” This led to additional engagements on typhoon recovery and flood control, and reclamation projects with the Philippine Department of Environment and Natural Resources.

In March 2023, Amanda participated in a technical exchange hosted by the Taiwan Water Resources Agency (TWRA). Over 100 participants from academia, local and federal agencies, and NGOs took part and expressed a great deal of interest in the knowledge that the USACE and TWRA had to share. As Amanda notes, “We enjoyed participating in the panel. I believe to this day we're applying what we learned and brought home to our respective countries.” Burton followed this up in October 2023, attending the Taiwan International Water Week hosted by TWRA. “It was a great opportunity to share some of our best practices and try to relate them in ways that the next generation of professionals—scientists, biologists, engineers, and other disciplines—can pick up on.”

In the Portland District in 2022 and in the Seattle District in 2023, USACE hosted technical exchanges with delegations from the Japanese Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport, and Tourism (MLIT). Both countries face similar issues in their coastal environments. As Amanda describes it, “I saw a lot was multi-issue problems in Japan with compounding effects—flooding, plus wave action on storm events, and the most subsidence I'd ever seen, plus the risk of volcanic activity. While multibenefit may be seen as nicety for us, for Japan, it’s a necessity.”

These examples underscore the value of relationships in the Pacific Region. As Paul notes, “From a military perspective, we don’t do anything anymore alone. It’s always together.” For Burton, “To me, it’s mutual learning. I’m always pleasantly surprised how engaged and engaging the participants are and how much progress they have made to incorporate innovative EWN principles and practices into their projects.” Amanda adds: “Building deep relationships that are sustainable is so important. I think to progress the practice and support a sustainable future, we need to engineer with nature, but we need to engineer with humanity too.”

For more information and resource links, please visit the EWN Podcast page on the EWN website at https://www.engineeringwithnature.org/
• Amanda Tritinger at LinkedIn
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