Parks and Refuges Embrace the Future Through Adaptive Management, Planning and Partnerships EWN - Engineering With Nature

https://ewn.erdc.dren.mil/?p=6272, Applying EWN Strategies at National Parks and Refuges, we featured a robust discussion about the significant impacts of climate change on National Parks and Wildlife Refuges and how Engineering With Nature approaches are being used to protect these precious natural resources and make them more resilient. In this episode, host Sarah Thorne and Jeff King, Deputy Lead of the Engineering With Nature Program at the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, continue the discussion with Rebecca Beavers, Coastal Geology and Adaptation Coordinator for the National Park Service and Scott Covington, Senior Ecologist for Refuges within the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. They’re talking about the importance of connecting people with nature through the parks and refuges and helping them to better understand climate change.   The 2016 https://www.nps.gov/orgs/1207/10-31-2016-handbook-release.htm, which Rebecca co-edited for the National Park Service, emphasizes the importance of letting people see the challenges facing the parks, along with how nature-based solutions are being deployed. Rebecca describes how the Park Service is adapting to climate change, including how the Service interacts with visitors and other stakeholders: “Some of our parks, for example, https://www.nps.gov/caha/index.htm, are incredibly low lying. People have to watch for timing for when they can actually visit. It doesn't have to be a Nor'easter storm pushing a lot of water into the shoreline. Some of our parks, such as https://www.nps.gov/guis/index.htm, can see flooding due to a large rain event.” As a result, the National Park Service and partners such as Western Carolina University are conducting https://www.nps.gov/subjects/climatechange/vulnerability.htm, looking at where trails, parking lots, and campgrounds are located and having to make some difficult choices. “Part of our mission is for visitor use today, and for the enjoyment and use for future generations. So, we’re looking at what we can do now, but also planning for the future and looking at where some of those major impacts are coming from, not only coastal change, but also climate change.”   Scott notes that for some people, “the proof is in the pudding”. Comparing an area before and after a project is often the best way to help people understand what is being done to protect refuges. He describes challenges related to a 4,000 acre https://www.fws.gov/refuge/Prime_Hook/what_we_do/marshrestoration.html at the https://www.fws.gov/refuge/prime_hook/ on a barrier island: “It took a lot of effort by the Refuge to communicate and convince people that we're not going to compromise the integrity of their town. We're not going to affect your road to get to your beach. That’s what happened historically. The road often flooded, and the community was really afraid that the work that we were doing was going to make the problem worse. But by broadening the beach, bringing in more coarse sand and gravel to that area, as the storm surge hits that beach, it loses energy, and it starts dropping the sediment out. Since the project was completed in 2016, flooding the town and the road doesn't happen anymore. We were able to use an EWN approach to fix the problems.”   Scott goes on to describe the “phenomenal wildlife benefits” from this project: “We’ve never had Piping Plovers, a threatened species, nest there.  Now we have Piping Plovers and Least Terns nesting,...