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In Season 7, Episode 10, host Sarah Thorne and cohost Jeff King, National Lead of the Engineering With Nature (EWN) Program, US Army Corps of Engineers (USACE), continue their in-depth conversation with Katharine Hayhoe, Chief Scientist of The Nature Conservancy (TNC). In Part 2 of our special 3-part series, Katharine talks about taking action—living according to your values and making changes that contribute to climate solutions—and about the critical role of nature-based solutions (NBS) in addressing climate change. 

To live up to her personal climate action values Katharine measured her own carbon footprint 12 years ago and when she found that travel was the largest factor, she successfully transitioned over 80% of her talks to virtual. “Then the pandemic hit and I was ready to go.” She notes that when she does travel for an important event, she “bundles” other meetings and speaking opportunities around that event. “When I went to the climate COP two years ago in Egypt, I packed in 55 panels, meetings, talks, and events.”

Katharine believes that communicating the message that climate action is a collective effort that all people can meaningfully contribute to, is essential. “People are worried about climate change, but they don't know what to do about it.” Picking up the analogy she used in S7E9 comparing the work of addressing climate change to moving a giant boulder, Katharine adds: “If we feel like we’re the only hands on the boulder that we’re trying to roll uphill, we will despair. But if we realize there are millions of hands on the boulder, in every country around the world, then we realize we're not alone. That global connectivity is absolutely essential to fixing this problem.”

Katharine goes on to talk about the critical role of NBS as part of the response to climate change, noting that the IPCC estimates that 25% of present-day emissions could be addressed by NBS. “If I see a newspaper headline saying, ‘Is this a silver bullet for climate change?’, I can tell you the answer is no. But I like to say there’s a lot of silver buckshot, and nature is one of our biggest pieces of silver buckshot. I mean, 25% of the climate change pie? That is huge!” She adds that NBS also produces multiple benefits, and notes: “Nature is all through these climate solutions. In fact, I don’t think there’s any way for us to meet our commitments made in the Paris Agreement in 2015, in any way, shape, or form, if we leave nature out of the equation.”

Jeff is highly complimentary of TNC’s work on NBS and highlights the important contribution of TNC in bringing organizations together to collaborate on NBS initiatives such as the Natural Infrastructure Initiative that TNC led along with Caterpillar, USACE, the University of Georgia, and Ducks Unlimited. “When you put TNC in a room with, say, an AECOM or a Great Lakes Dredge and Dock, people start scratching their heads saying, ‘Hmm, what's this all about?’ TNC brings so much interest and awareness to this space, showing how very different entities can work collaboratively to accomplish many of the same goals and objectives that we all share.”

Our conversation with Katharine concludes in Episode 11, which posts on June 26. In our final episode of this series, Katharine focuses on inspiring action, how to learn more about climate change, and how to talk about it with others. We hope you enjoy this special series!!

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
•      Katharine Hayhoe at...

Katharine Hayhoe is a world-renowned scientist, climate communicator, and passionate advocate for climate equity. She’s a climate ambassador whose message is one of hope. She has dedicated her life to motivating action. Every day. In Season 7, Episode 9, Katharine Hayhoe, Chief Scientist of The Nature Conservancy (TNC) joins host Sarah Thorne and cohost Jeff King, National Lead of the Engineering With Nature (EWN) Program, US Army Corps of Engineers (USACE), for a conversation on climate change that was so deep and wide ranging that we’re going to feature it in a 3-episode series.

Katharine was born in Toronto, Canada, and grew up in a home where science was always front and center. Late in her undergraduate studies in astrophysics, she took a class on climate change, which completely changed her educational path and led to a PhD in atmospheric science. “I found out that climate change affects us all, but it doesn’t affect us all equally. I felt if I had the skill set you need to work on this urgent global issue that affects every aspect of our lives on this planet, if I have those abilities and those privileges, I need to be using them to make a difference.”

Today, as Chief Scientist at TNC, where she can live her passion for applied science. TNC has ambitious goals for protecting and conserving freshwater, land, and the oceans. In describing the challenges of addressing climate change today, and in particular the social inequities, Katharine notes that “engaging with nature-based solutions not only addresses immediate issues of climate adaptation to heat, it also helps with air pollution, health, and flooding.”

Katharine’s message is one of hope. “I think of this as the ‘head to heart to hands’ gap. In our heads, we know global temperature is rising and humans are responsible. Around the world, the vast majority of people are worried about climate change. In the US over two thirds of people are worried. So, we’re really reaching a tipping point in terms of the head, but they don’t understand how it affects the people, places and things we love. They haven't made the head to heart connection. They still think of it as a future issue, a distant issue, and something that is not on their priority list. If we don’t understand there’s a problem that matters to us, why would we want to fix it?”

Katharine sees that as only half of the challenge. “We could have the whole world worried, but if they don’t know what to do about it, they’ll do nothing. And that’s exactly what we see in the US. Two thirds of people are worried, but only 8% are activated. That’s where the hope comes in. The hope is in connecting our heart to our hands. If I do something, could it make a difference?” Through her newsletter—Talking Climate—and many other channels, Katharine is trying to close these gaps by sharing good news and the actions being taken by people. “Because the number one thing we can do to kickstart and catalyze action is the thing that two thirds of Americans are not doing, and that is we’re not talking about it.” 

Part 2 of the conversation with Katherine, includes a discussion of the critical role that that nature-based solutions play in addressing climate change. Episode 10 posts June 12. In Episode 11, which posts on June 26, the third part of our conversation with Katharine focuses on inspiring action, how to learn more about climate change, and how to talk about it with others.  We hope you enjoy this special series!!  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
•      a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/katharine-hayhoe/"...

How do we think about forests and their value? We know that forests store carbon, and with the climate changing, many might think the answer is to just plant more trees. Our guests challenge that conventional wisdom and, as the saying goes, help us see the forest for the trees. In Season 7, Episode 8, host Sarah Thorne and cohost Jeff King, National Lead of the Engineering With Nature (EWN) Program, US Army Corps of Engineers (USACE), are joined by Laurie Wayburn, Cofounder and President of Pacific Forest Trust (PFT), and Nathan Beane, Research Forester in the Environmental Laboratory of the USACE Engineer Research and Development Center (ERDC). They’re talking about how to sustainably manage forests to make them more resilient. 

Laurie has dedicated her career to forest conservation and sustainability. She is an innovator, a pioneer, and an authoritative voice on forest practices and policy. Much of Laurie’s work at Pacific Forest Trust (PFT) is working with private landowners on conserving forests. “We wanted to work with what I would call the enlightened self-interest of private landowners and make it financially competitive, or even more desirable, to keep their forests as forests, not just as plantations, but to manage them as forests with the full suite of functions.”

Nathan is the leading research forester within the US Department of Defense (DoD). As lead of the Forest Ecosystem Dynamics Team at ERDC, his research primarily focuses on forest communities, their function, health, management, and sustainment, and ultimately the creation of “resilient forests.” Nathan’s work addresses problems in forested lands on USACE and DoD installations. His on-the-ground research helps to inform a more comprehensive understanding of healthy forest ecosystems and how to improve their management.

In their respective roles, both Laurie and Nathan speak for the forests. As Laurie describes it, “When people use the term forestry, what they’re typically thinking about is the production of timber or fiber commodities. That phrase, ‘seeing the forest for the trees,’ is all too apt because so many people think of forests just as a collection of trees.” She describes forest systems as beginning well below the ground and ending above the canopy with trees being the most visible piece of a storehouse of biodiversity that comprises the forest overall. Nathan agrees, noting, “While forests provide key habitats for a range of wildlife, including threatened endangered species, they also generate oxygen, filter water, provide soil stabilization, carbon sequestration, ecosystem biodiversity, natural disaster mitigation, and flood control.”

Laurie has a strong call to action for listeners: “One of the most critical things I hope we can help people think about is forests are essential infrastructure, just as we think about roads or the internet as essential infrastructure. As you go about your daily life, be aware of, and grateful for, the grace and blessing of forests and return the favor. They don’t exist without people caring and being involved.”

Nathan agrees: “I’m a big advocate for that. I think it’s important to highlight that it’s critical that we understand the complexity of forests. We have a lot of challenges ahead of us, and I think it’s really important that we continue to conduct research in this space. I’m really glad to be a part of the EWN Program that supports this.”

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
•      Laurie...

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
•      a...

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...