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<\/a>Yet, despite what we know about the effectiveness of these features, natural infrastructure is still an underutilized resilience strategy.<\/p>\n
While there is broad agreement that natural infrastructure<\/a> can be an effective, sustainable means to reduce flood damages, existing information gaps make it difficult for city planners, engineers and decision-makers to fully support these practices. The good news is there is work already underway to help fill these gaps and make natural infrastructure solutions more accessible.<\/p>\n It\u2019s not a question of why, but how<\/strong><\/p>\n To help address gaps, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers convened a group of international experts \u2013 including myself and others from EDF \u2013 to develop guidelines on how to plan, design and assess natural infrastructure projects to reduce flooding impacts and improve environmental quality.<\/p>\n These guidelines, developed by engineers, scientists and economists from multiple nations, will span a variety of topics, including river flooding, storm water management and shoreline erosion. The guidelines will stress strategic planning and adaptive management, to yield multi-objective, multi-partnered projects that can be more rapidly implemented.\u00a0Once we start to accelerate the use of natural infrastructure solutions, vulnerable communities worldwide will be better equipped to weather increasingly extreme storms and flooding. <\/a><\/span>Share on X<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n As a result, by 2020, planning and design professionals across the globe will have world-class principles and procedures that should dramatically accelerate implementation of natural infrastructure projects to reduce flood damages and help communities adapt to changing climatic conditions.<\/p>\n Need for improved policies<\/strong><\/p>\n To further accelerate the use of natural infrastructure, we also need to close the governance gap. Thankfully, there are new policies helping us get where we need to be.<\/p>\n America\u2019s Water Infrastructure Act, signed into law last month, encourages<\/a> the use of natural and green infrastructure for flood risk management and storm damage risk reduction. Another example is a recent Army Corps memo that specifically calls out incorporation of natural infrastructure options as a desired innovation for inclusion in projects funded in the Hurricane Harvey supplemental.<\/p>\n Despite these strides, we still need additional measures.<\/p>\n Environment and resource agencies need to incorporate current and future climate conditions, such as increased precipitation, sea level rise and habitat shifts, into their permitting review decision processes. Permitting entities also should take a harder look at how to implement natural infrastructure restoration projects more quickly and for less money, to help get these projects and their habitat improvement and risk-reduction benefits on the ground sooner.<\/p>\n<\/a>