In this episode of the Engineering With Nature® Podcast, our guests are Dr. Brian Bledsoe, Director of the Institute for Resilient Infrastructure Systems (IRIS) at the University of Georgia, and Dr. Todd Bridges, Senior Research Scientist for Environmental Science, with the US Army Corps of Engineers, and founder and national lead of the Engineering With Nature initiative and the sponsor of this podcast. They discuss a new partnership – the Network for Engineering With Nature (N-EWN). Its focus is promoting the development of new practice and fostering the drive, passion and expertise for delivering nature-based solutions for infrastructure in the next generation of scientists, engineers, business leaders, and decision makers. IRIS and Engineering With Nature (EWN) have a lot in common. IRIS’s vision is to unite the conventional ‘gray’ infrastructure with ‘green’ or natural infrastructure to deliver a broader array of benefits, all the time, for people and society. In the past, infrastructure development was almost exclusively driven by engineering expertise. The progression now underway in infrastructure development combines environmental and social expertise and practices with engineering, providing a multidisciplinary approach to collaboration, outreach, communication, and solution development. IRIS has effectively bridged the divide between different disciplinary perspectives – engineers, ecologists, social scientists, public health practitioners, landscape architects, lawyers and policy experts – by, as Brian says, being open and humble and coming together to find equitable and sustainable solutions to 21st century infrastructure problems. Reciprocal visits by individuals and groups from the University of Georgia and the Army Corps’ Engineer Research and Development Center quickly established that the two organizations were on the same page and the conditions were set for developing the N-EWN, which launched October 16. N-EWN is a partnership focusing on two major components: research and education. Research is needed to integrate engineering practice with natural systems, while also actively engaging practitioners and the communities that are going receive and benefit from future infrastructure. Infusing EWN principles and approaches into professional training and education will support the development of professional engineers, for example, within the Army Corps of Engineers, the private sector, as well as the development of future engineers, ecologists and social scientists, through new courses and curricula. As Todd and Brian discuss, current research activities within the N-EWN fall into four areas:
