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This episode starts with a story. In 1604, 79 members of an expedition from France, including Samuel de Champlain, came to Saint Croix Island off the shores of Maine and New Brunswick to set up a colony in the new land. They called it l’Acadie—Acadia. Over the severe winter of 1604 to 1605, 35 of the settlers died, likely of scurvy. In the spring, members of the Passamaquoddy Tribe befriended the French survivors and brought them food; and, ultimately, their health improved. In the summer of 1605, the survivors moved the Acadia settlement to Port Royal, Nova Scotia, and the rest is history. The Acadians went on to play an integral part in the histories of Canada, the United States, and France. Today, that 6.5-acre uninhabited island and its very significant history is threatened by high tides, shoreline erosion, powerful winter storms, and more—all exacerbated by climate change.

In Season 6, Episode 6, host Sarah Thorne is joined by cohost Jeff King, National Lead of the Engineering With Nature Program, US Army Corps of Engineers, and the USACE Project Lead for collaboration on the Saint Croix Island activities; Donald Soctomah, Tribal Historic Preservation Officer for the Passamaquoddy Nation; Becky Cole-Will, Chief of Resource Management for Acadia and Saint Croix Island National Parks, US National Park Service; and Amy Hunt, Senior Project Manager at EA Engineering, Science, and Technology, Inc. in New Hampshire. They are working together to figure out how to use nature-based solutions to protect and preserve Saint Croix Island and its unique historical significance.

Each of the guests speaks to the unique nature of Saint Croix Island and their personal affinity to it. Donald notes that “Saint Croix has always been a special place, not just for the one winter that the Acadians spent on it but also for the last 15,000 years of Passamaquoddy history.” The guests also note the Island’s importance as a symbol of the impacts of climate change. As Donald notes, “When I look at the Island I see a symbol of the change that’s going on related to climate. Because right before your eyes, you can see the rising ocean, the erosion, the shrinking of the Island. Every time I look at that Island, I think about climate change and the importance of trying to make other people aware of it.”

In June of 2023, the National Park Service hosted a workshop that brought together about 25 participants—biologists, geologists, engineers, planners, policymakers, and Tribal officers—to discuss the challenge and the opportunity and learn more about the history of the Island. The purpose, as Amy describes it, “was to ask the right questions and cast a really wide net then whittle it down to a few specific priorities.” Becky adds, “The first day we spent thinking about what could be done. Then people had an opportunity to get out there and see the Island and say, ‘I get it now.’ There was a lot of reality checking and ground truthing that was fascinating to hear.”

Jeff appreciated the guests sharing their insights and perspective. He noted that the work is ongoing: “We’re just getting started. Brian Davis at the University of Virginia has been working collaboratively with the project partners to come up with designs and renderings that we want to discuss with Donald and the Passamaquoddy Tribe to ensure that we’re integrating traditional ecological knowledge along the way. I’m excited about where we’re headed and the opportunities this project will offer.”

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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As fall gets into full swing, we’re kicking off the second half of Season 6 of the EWN Podcast by talking with members of the EWN leadership team about what they’ve been working on and what’s ahead. In Episode 5, host Sarah Thorne is joined by cohost Jeff King, National Lead of the EWN; cohost Amanda Tritinger, Deputy Program Manager, EWN; and Courtney Chambers, Communications Lead, EWN.

The summer of 2023 was an unprecedented summer in many ways. As Sarah notes, “Mother Nature certainly demonstrated that climate change is upon us.” Jeff agrees, revisiting the topic Canada’s worst wildfire season ever, covered in Season 6, Episode 4, as well as the wildfires that devastated Lahaina, Hawaii. He also talks about the extreme rainfall and flooding in the southwest caused by Tropical Storm Hillary and the extraordinary flooding and devastation caused by Hurricane Idalia to the big bend area of Florida. As Jeff notes, “People in all parts of the US, Canada, and around the world are experiencing the effects of climate change firsthand.” This global wakeup call is challenging and motivating for the EWN Program. Jeff notes that there are 49 active research projects being led by personnel at the USACE Engineer Research and Development Center to address the climate change imperative by integrating nature-based solutions.

As Communications Lead, Courtney Chambers is responsible for sharing the incredible work that is going on with EWN. In her discussion with Sarah, Courtney describes some of what she has been doing to support the development and promotion of publications critical to broadening the reach of EWN, including the next volume of the EWN Atlas series, which captures the essence of EWN and nature-based solutions through images. As Courtney notes, “If you’ve seen Atlas I or II, you know that these books really showcase the potential for EWN and the diversity they can include.” Sarah adds, “You’re helping to share the stories of all of the brilliant scientists, engineers, landscape architects, and other collaborators—and the EWN projects that they’re working on—to inspire others. It’s important work.”

Sarah also speaks with Amanda Tritinger. Amanda shares highlights from her recent trip to Taiwan, coordinated with the USACE Pacific Ocean Division (POD). She was invited to talk about opportunities to engineer with nature as part of the information and technology exchange with the Taiwan Water Resource Agency. “The TWRA has a lot of really cool projects. It was exciting to share what EWN has going on but also to learn a lot of what Taiwan has been doing.” Amanda notes that through the POD they have been involved with a lot of opportunities in Southeast Asia with colleagues in Japan and Vietnam. “It’s really exciting that the world is a big place and what seems like a problem can be its own solution through the use of natural infrastructure and better understanding the environment around us.”

In closing, Jeff notes, “The climate change that we’ve all been experiencing is really challenging and motivating our EWN colleagues and collaborators to be innovative—to conduct research and field work on a range of projects that can help mitigate the impacts of climate change and help communities adapt and become more resilient. I really look forward to sharing some of the truly groundbreaking work underway on future episodes of the EWN Podcast. I don’t think we’re going to run out of interesting things to share with our listeners!!”

For more information and resource links, please visit the EWN Podcast page on the EWN website at https://www.engineeringwithnature.org/
• Jeff King at LinkedIn
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In late June, while preparing for this episode, there were over 500 wildfires burning across Canada. Smoke from the wildfires was affecting millions of Canadians and Americans across a wide swath of North America with air quality indexes reaching extreme levels. As of the posting of this episode (July 25, 2023), the number of wildfires burning across Canada had grown to over 1000 with 660 classified as “out of control”. Our timing to have a conversation about wildfires with a prominent Canadian scientist could not have been more relevant.

In Season 6, Episode 4, host Sarah Thorne is joined by cohost Jeff King, National Lead of the Engineering With Nature Program, US Army Corps of Engineers, and Anabela Bonada, Manager and Research Associate at the Intact Centre for Climate Adaptation at the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada. Among other things, Anabela is an expert in forest fires and has been actively involved developing a user-friendly guide for residents to simplify the recommendations in Canada’s National Wildfire Guide.

Canada’s wildfire season started early this year. Anabela puts the current situation into context: “The Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Center reports that [as of July 5] over 85,000 square kilometers, or almost 33,000 square miles have been burned so far. This is equivalent to a little bit more than New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island, in Canada, combined or a little bit bigger than South Carolina in the US. This is already the worst wildfire season on record for Canada.”

She notes that with climate change, drier and warmer seasons are expected going forward in Canada and the US, particularly in an El Niño year. “For North America, it means that we’re going to see drier, warmer climate in the West and Northwest, areas that are usually wildfire prone, and parts of Canada. The expectation is more wildfires—in size and intensity.”

There’s a lot of work underway in Canada to raise awareness about wildfires and to make communities more resilient. The Intact Centre, in collaboration with FireSmart Canada, has developed easy to follow guidance for homeowners and for communities to get ahead of wildfire risks. As Anabela notes, “There are things that you can do around your home, from simple, moving any combustible material 10 meters (about 33 feet) away from your home, to more complex, like considering a Class A roof that is resistant to wildfire.”

Anabela goes on to note that a more nature-based solution is to focus on changing the natural drivers that lead to extreme wildfires rather than fighting the fires after they have started. “So, our focus needs to shift from suppression to prevention as we consider nature-based solutions to wildfire.” Anabela’s call to action with regards to wildfires is, “We need to take action, now—all the way from policymakers right down to every individual.”

Jeff agrees and adds: “I am thinking about collaboration and the fact that wildfires really don’t respect borders. What can we be doing now and in the future? I want to think about what kind of collaborative research is needed and how we pursue that—including how natural infrastructure and nature-based solutions can be used in advance of a wildfire event but also following wildfire events.” For more information and resource links, please visit the EWN Podcast page on the EWN website at https://www.engineeringwithnature.org/

• Jeff King at LinkedIn
• Anabela Bonada at LinkedIn

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“The Ocean holds the keys to an equitable and sustainable planet. Join the revolution to unlock innovative ocean science solutions.” That is the opportunity and challenge posed by the Ocean Decade, the United Nations Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development (2021–2030). Launched in January 2021, the Ocean Decade provides a convening framework for a wide range of stakeholders across the world to engage and collaborate outside their traditional communities to trigger nothing less than a revolution in ocean science. This is clearly a topic to explore on the Engineering With Nature® Podcast.

In Season 6, Episode 3, host Sarah Thorne is joined by cohost Amanda Tritinger, Research Hydraulics Engineer in the Coastal and Hydraulics Laboratory of the Engineer Research and Development Center, US Army Corps of Engineers (USACE). Amanda was recently named Deputy Program Manager for EWN. Together they welcome Courtney McGeachy, Director of the Ocean Visions – UN Decade Collaborative Center for Ocean-Climate Solutions. Amanda and Courtney recently met at the State of the Coast Conference in Louisiana where they were on a couple of panels together, including one discussing nature-based solutions (NBS). Amanda thought Courtney would be an inspiring guest, and she certainly was.

The Ocean Visions – UN Decade Collaborative Center is a partnership with Ocean Visions, Georgia Tech, and the Georgia Aquarium. Courtney describes Ocean Visions as a nonprofit startup focused on innovations and solutions for the fight against climate change. The UN’s Ocean Decade is designed to take us from “the ocean we have to the ocean we want.” The Ocean Decade has seven desired “Ocean Outcomes,” including a clean ocean, a healthy and resilient ocean, a productive ocean, a predicted ocean, a safe ocean, an accessible ocean, and an inspiring and engaging ocean. “I think these are all important because they touch on not only everything that we need from a scientific lens but also what we need from a personal and community lens. There’s no point in making the ocean safe and healthy if it’s not accessible to all of us.”

Courtney notes that there are a lot of different opportunities when it comes to nature-based solutions. “We want to make sure that we are creating opportunities to leverage these nature-based solutions to help fight climate change. I think Jane Lubchenco said it best. We were sort of trying to change the narrative from the ocean being a victim to the ocean being a solution to help us fight climate change.”

In closing, Courtney summarizes her “call to action” for policy and decision makers. “Give innovations and solutions a fighting chance. With every solution, there are risks and side effects. So, I encourage policymakers to think of the ocean and climate crisis as a public health crisis because they’re quite similar. I would also encourage policymakers to find the resources. Step up to the plate financially.”

Amanda’s call to action is to not put solutions into a box—consider this OR that. “Why not both?The huge takeaway from this conversation is that there are cobenefits. There’s a toolbox—a suite of tools—there’s no reason we can’t combine them. There’s redundancy in our resilient solutions that work together and, while protecting our communities, can also protect our citizens while helping to protect our ocean, which is our incredible resource that we might taking for granted right now.”

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
• a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/courtney-mcgeachy-b14a3350"...

The City of Boston is experiencing climate change and taking action to build urban resiliency through their Climate Ready Boston initiative. In Season 6, Episode 2 of the EWN® Podcast, Host Sarah Thorne is joined by Co-host Andrew McQueen, Research Biologist in the Environmental Laboratory of the Engineer Research and Development Center, USACE, and Joe Christo, Managing Director of the Stone Living Lab in Boston, Massachusetts. Both are passionate about integrating nature-based solutions (NBS) into resilience projects to help address coastal and inland flooding in Boston and beyond.

Stone Living Lab's mission is to conduct transformative research and outreach to make vulnerable regions adaptive to climate change while enhancing natural and built environments. Andrew and Joe first started working together at the Stone Living Lab’s first in-person conference, Nature-Based Coastal Resilience in Urban Settings, held in Boston, MA from April 26-28, 2023 where Jeff King, EWN National Lead, and Andrew served as Conference Committee Members. The conference brought together top experts from academia, industry, government, and environmental consulting firms to have meaningful discussions and exchange ideas on the latest advancements in using NBS to address climate change risks and sea-level rise in coastal urban environments.

Andrew describes the nexus between critical infrastructure and the risk associated with coastal hazards: “We have this risk to deal with and one of the big questions is how do we buy down that risk? What opportunities do we have to manage our infrastructure, manage these environments, to offset that risk?” Storm surge associated with sea level rise and climate change is an area of focus for both USACE and the Stone Living Lab.

Joe talks about the imperative to build coastal resilience: “Climate change is, and will continue to increase coastal and riverine flooding, as well as other hazards like storm water flooding and extreme heat. With Hurricane Sandy, having barely missed Boston, the city knew it needed to prepare for more events like this, and for climate change. Climate Ready Boston was launched in 2016, covering a range of climate hazards and vulnerability assessments, looking at exactly what can be done throughout the city, working with community groups and residents and consultants. It has resulted in these Coastal Resilience Solutions reports that cover the 47 miles of coastline and really looks at how the people and neighborhoods of Boston can adapt.”

Andrew and Joe are both very positive about the outcome of the recent conference and optimistic about the opportunities for continuing their collaboration. As Andrew puts it, “One thing I observed during the conference was the immense diversity of technical backgrounds, which I thought was extremely interesting. I think everything that we're working on with nature-based solutions is inherently multidisciplinary. We need everyone sitting at the table to talk through these issues. The Stone Living Lab conference was a perfect venue. The momentum that's growing for nature-based solutions is particularly exciting.”

Joe adds, “It's so important to avoid the doom and gloom that can come with working on climate change and instead focus on the opportunities and the positivity, and really embrace the way that we're all trying to work together on these challenges. It was so nice to be able to come together in person and just learn from colleagues and share ideas about how to collaboratively do this work in positive ways.”

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

The theme for Season 6 of the EWN Podcast is “Expanding the EWN Lattice.” Host Sarah Thorne is joined by Jeff King, National Lead of the Engineering With Nature Program, to discuss his new role as the EWN National Lead, his vision for EWN, and what’s ahead for 2023. Jeff says he was thinking about the growth of crystal structures—like ice crystals—that grow in three-dimensional, symmetric patterns. It is a metaphor for how he sees the EWN Program growing, expanding in a structured way, interconnecting in a specific manner.

“When I think about building out all the elements that support and enable expansion of nature-based solutions—really it’s the people, it’s the projects, it’s the policies that determine what can and can’t be done, and it’s also the geography.” He adds, “So highlighting all these pieces and how they fit and intertwine so completely to form a lattice is the focus of this season of the Podcast. We’ll highlight innovative EWN topics and nature-based solutions.”

Sarah notes that, while the theme was intriguing, “it may be a bit geeky.” But it accurately reflects where EWN is going: “It’s growing in a very holistic way. The projects are larger, more complex, with many more partners and collaborators, and working with people at the community level. It’s a good picture and theme for Season 6.” Collaboration is key to Jeff’s vision for EWN. The partners in the Network for Engineering With Nature (N-EWN) are making significant contributions to the advancement and integration of nature-based solutions (NBS) for resilience strategies. “We want to continue to build on, grow, and enhance those connections and the added value they bring, not just for the EWN Program, but for all who want to see NBS prioritized as an additional tool in the toolbox for resilience.”

As Jeff notes, having a unified approach to NBS across federal agencies is a key priority of this Administration. And with increasing opportunities to incorporate EWN into future projects, communities are eager to be actively involved. “Communities and stakeholders want to see NBS as part of an overall strategy for creating resilience, while creating additional value for their communities, whether it is social benefits or environmental benefits.”

Jeff adds that Season 6 will also feature some of the exciting work being done on the military side of the Corps’s portfolio. “We’re working with more than 17 different installations around the country to have NBS included as part of their resilience strategies. We’re talking about the opportunity to create system-scale resilience inside and outside the fence line.” Jeff’s vision for EWN revolves around a large team dedicated to advancing the principles of EWN. Currently the EWN portfolio comprises over 60 active R&D projects, marking the highest number in EWN history.

Leading each of those projects is a principal investigator who is working with his or her team to deliver the products that advances practice and understanding of NBS. “Part of my vision is to open that aperture larger and bring those individuals into this Podcast to share their stories and offer highlights of what’s been happening with their research.” He adds, “To accelerate the adoption of EWN, we need a much larger network and people that are all rowing in the same direction.

That’s where “Expanding the EWN Lattice” really comes into play. We want to harness that energy across the large, multidisciplinary team representing a broad range of organizations that are really moving the needle in this space. That to me is doable and we will accomplish it.” For more information and resource links, please visit the EWN Podcast page on the EWN website at https://www.engineeringwithnature.org/
• Jeff...