March 20-23, 2017
Dr. Todd Bridges, Dr. Jeff King, Ms. Mary Bryant, and Dr. Todd Swannack participated in the Natural Capital Symposium (NCS) at Stanford University, Stanford, CA. The NCS brought together more than 300 leaders in natural capital approaches from more than 30 countries located around the world.
Keynote speakers at the symposium included the presidents and CEOs of the World Wildlife Fund and The Nature Conservancy. The NCS coordinates with international and domestic groups focusing on natural capital approaches, to ensure that the growing community of practice around natural capital approaches continues to engage, learn, and adapt. Interactive sessions throughout the symposium focused around five central themes: sustainable development planning, securing freshwater, fostering resilient coastal communities, developing sustainable cities, and creating standards for the private sector. Throughout the week, the US Army Corps of Engineers’ (USACE) Engineer Re search and Development Center’s (ERDC) participants made several connections and identified numerous collaboration opportunities that will leverage ongoing ERDC research projects with current NCS projects. As an invited speaker, Dr. Todd Bridges provided the audience with a description of ERDC’s Engineering with Nature (EWN) Program including highlights of several USACE coastal projects that resulted in ecosystem and engineering benefits.
Likewise, Dr. King and Ms. Bryant presented posters that offered symposium attendees additional insight specific to EWN and ERDC’s coastal engineering research. The symposium concluded with Dr. Bridges, Dr. King, Ms. Bryant and Dr. Swannack hosting a workshop that focused on the elucidation and quantification of benefits derived from Natural and Nature-Based Features (NNBF). Information derived from this workshop will be integrated into a chapter of the International NNBF Guidelines Document, which is an independent effort being led by ERDC.
