When we think about the use of nature-based features to increase coastal resilience, the current focus is mostly on coasts along the ocean. But what about the Great Lakes? Over the past 10 years, the Great Lakes have experienced both historic high and historic low lake levels. These extreme fluctuations cause flooding, erosion, and property damage, often putting people living in communities at risk. In Season 8, Episode 4, host Sarah Thorne is joined by Burton Suedel, Research Biologist in the Environmental Laboratory at the Engineer Research and Development Center (ERDC), US Army Corps of Engineers (USACE), and David Bucaro, Chief of the Planning Branch, Chicago District, USACE. They are discussing the important work underway to make the Great Lakes more resilient to the effects of climate change.
David relates what he considers a “fairly linear journey” to his current work at USACE. His sense of service was instilled in him at a young age, through his participation in Scouting. His first three merit badges were for citizenship in the community, nation, and world. As a child, he enjoyed tinkering with things to see how they worked. He excelled in math and science, and remembering what his dad said—that infrastructure was aging and there would always be a need for engineers—he studied civil engineering. Having enjoyed his undergraduate classes in water resources, he went on to get a master’s degree in hydrology and water resources engineering at the University of Illinois.
While working on his graduate degree, David began his career with USACE at the Construction Engineering Research Lab (CERL) and then joined the Chicago District when he graduated. “I had a thirst for working for a District office on large infrastructure projects, pretty much where the rubber meets the road, harkening back to those vacations with my dad where we toured locks and dams and harbors.” The District’s rotational intern program gave him the opportunity to work across various disciplines. He quickly grew to appreciate the USACE planning process and eventually became a civil works planner and project manager in various positions over nearly two decades. In 2022, he became the Chief of Planning for the Chicago District. “I always had a dream to hold that position and I’ll tell you, the past two years as the Chief of Planning for the Chicago District has been quite rewarding and quite busy.”
David is driven by a desire to solve problems by collaborating and innovating to solve the nation’s toughest engineering challenges. He’s also passionate about shaping the Corps’ Civil Works program to address water resource challenges by pushing the envelope to innovate solutions on a watershed scale. As Burton notes, “These are the leadership qualities we need as we collaborate with our many partners, stakeholders, and Tribal nations whom the Corps is working very closely with on the future of the Great Lakes.”
Great Lakes Fast Facts:
- The combined US and Canadian coast of the Great Lakes is over 10 thousand miles long.
- Approximately 34 million people in the US and Canada live in the Great Lakes Basin in 8 US states and 2 Canadian provinces, 4 million within 2 miles of the coast.
- The Great Lakes comprise 1/5 of the world’s fresh surface water and 95 % of the US surface water.
- There are 60 commercial harbors moving over 125 million tons of commodities each year.
- The Great Lakes maritime economy is valued at over $17 billion annually, including 290,000+ jobs.
- One-third of the nation’s registered recreation boats are from Great Lakes states.
- The Great Lakes have some of the world’s most significant freshwater coastal habitats, wetlands, bluffs, dunes, beaches, and a rich biodiversity that includes several threatened and endangered species.
The Great Lakes play a critical role in the heart of North America and are being affected by climate change, including rapidly changing water levels and less ice coverage. There is a complex interaction between the lakes, land, and atmosphere that make it difficult to model the system. As David notes, this creates high levels of uncertainty in long-term projections of lake levels and challenges for making informed, resilient, and adaptable decisions about needed long-term investments. “To help better prepare for these future conditions, we’re working collaboratively with other federal agencies, state, and academic partners to identify the full range of Great Lakes water levels, wave heights, and ice conditions under a range of plausible climate change scenarios.” This is the focus of the 6-year, $14M Great Lakes Coastal Resilience Study (GLCRS) that David’s planning team is leading for USACE.
The GLCRS is a regional partnership of the USACE and all eight Great Lakes states working together in collaboration with expertise from federal agencies, Tribal nations, and state and local governments to create a strategy that identifies vulnerable coastal areas and offers an array of potential actions that can bolster the built natural coastal environments so that these coastal areas can withstand, recover, and adapt to the uncertain impact of climate change.
The first step was the development of a shared vision, and concurrently, a basin-wide assessment of vulnerabilities under a range of future conditions. As David describes it, “That’s really a mapping exercise to look at existing populations, infrastructure, habitat, land use, and socially vulnerable populations across all of the Great Lakes coasts.” This effort will help communities better understand the frequency and impacts of various climate scenarios and associated projections of changes in temperature and precipitation. Among its products will be a public website that will allow users to explore water levels under a range of possible climate scenarios. The study will also provide more detailed information for planners and engineers, including an assessment of “hotspot areas,” areas that are more vulnerable to future conditions.
GLCRS Shared Vision
In the face of a changing climate, our vision for the Great Lakes coasts is thriving and adaptable communities, ecosystems, economies, cultural heritage, recreational opportunities, and equitable access for present and future generations in perpetuity.
The next step will be to identify specific actions for the hotspot areas, which may include a combination of monitoring and further study. These focused area evaluations will include 14 in-person, 2-day workshops with interested parties to identify opportunities for nature-based solutions (NBS). The final step will be to produce the Great Lakes Coastal Resiliency Plan, which will include strategic recommendations and prioritize actions for USACE, other federal agencies, states, locals, and other nonfederal interests.
Burton notes how this effort complements and integrates well with work that his team is doing on The Great Lakes Natural and Nature-Based Features Playbook. “The overall purpose of the Playbook is to develop new conceptual nature-based designs specific to the Great Lakes that will achieve greater resiliency and adaptability to climate change than conventional designs.” The Playbook is intended to be used by planners and NBS practitioners within and outside of USACE to support the planning-level cost-benefit analyses under a range of conditions and future climate change scenarios. David adds that, since most of the applications of NBS to date have been limited to the ocean coastal regions, “there’s a lack of confidence in utilizing these innovative technologies within the Great Lakes region. The Playbook is going to give us the confidence to make NBS recommendations for certain areas. Several good examples of NBS applications have been implemented in the past few years—we want to build on those and bring NBS basin-wide.”
Volume 3 of the Engineering With Nature Atlas is a beautifully illustrated book that showcases a diverse array of domestic and international projects that embody the principles of EWN and demonstrate the myriad of benefits nature-based solutions offer—including some in the Great Lakes region. Download your copy from the EWN Website today!
David and Burton hope the Great Lakes Coastal Resiliency Plan and the EWN Playbook will benefit other regions and advance the practice of NBS. David’s call to action is for those living in the Great Lakes Basin to get involved in the GLCRS process: “We want to hear from you. We have multiple public meetings and updates. You can sign up for and share your feedback on our website. We’re interested in learning what you have experienced living on or near the Great Lakes coasts and where the vulnerabilities are from your perspective.” Burton encourages everyone to contribute to the library of innovative solutions to make the Great Lakes Basin more resilient to climate change. “The conventional way of infrastructure armoring is not the solution. The business-as-usual solution is not the way forward in terms of meaningfully addressing a changing climate because there are better ways of doing things, particularly by finding ways to incorporate natural infrastructure and natural features into our infrastructure projects. That’s what we need to be fully successful.”
