Engineering With Nature

Research

EWN® research activities encompass diverse landscapes, geographies, challenges, and techniques, with ongoing efforts to explore nature-based solutions for a wide range of natural hazards and challenges. Multiple projects have been funded to investigate topics such as sediment management, flood risk, coastal storms, drought, wildfire, and habitat health.

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Fire Island in 2019 (Photo: https://www.nps.gov/fiis/learn/nature/breaches.htm)

Quantifying the efficacy of a full-sized floating vegetated canopy field in providing near- and far-field shoreline protection

  • September 22, 2023
Understanding the social and economic landscape is important for nature-based projects. Unfortunately, many standard USACE business practices present institutional obstacles for identifying stakeholders and learning a...
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(A) Photo of arc fracture with digital image correlation (DIC) test setup. (B) DIC image showing extent of a propagated fracture. (C) Force vs. crack opening displacement result, showing two consecutive load cycles. By interspersing periods of recovery time between load cycles, material self-repair capabilities can be assessed. Solution ingress and chemical durability tests will be performed on pristine and preloaded arc specimens. Repair of fracture surfaces will be investigated with fine-scale microscopy and analysis.

Sustainable, Tunable, and Bioreceptive Cementitious Materials for EWN® Infrastructure Solutions

  • September 22, 2023
This project proposes to develop innovative concretes with environmentally sustainable alternative binders that deliver excellent chemical and mechanical resilience with significantly increased biological compatibilit...
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Screenshot 2023-09-22 123754

Island Creation and Stabilization Review and AdH Modeling to Develop Best Practices, Design Criteria, and Recommendations for Large Navigable River Island and Secondary Channel Management

  • September 22, 2023
Large navigable rivers have been modified in ways that channelize main channels and isolate off-channel aquatic areas to concentrate flow to create safe and efficient navigation channels.  Channelization eliminat...
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Steissberg-map

Utilizing EWN for Water, Sediment, and Contaminant Management in Agricultural Areas in the Midwest and Great Plains Regions

  • September 22, 2023
Extensive modifications of the landscape in the continental U.S. Great Plains and Midwest for agriculture has completely changed the hydrologic, sediment transport, and water quality characteristics of watersheds and ...
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Provost-Dunes-01

Operational Beach Management Practices to Encourage Resilient Dune Development

  • September 22, 2023
Operational Beach Management Practices to Encourage Resilient Dune Development is a project designed to encourage consistent communication between the scientific community and coastal regulatory agencies to ensure tha...
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Example of our ERDC-EL workflow for producing complex 3D Printed Nature-Inspired Infrastructure (3DP-NII) by CAD modeling, layer-by-layer slicing for 3D printing . The example shows a mangrove reef wall from Bridges et al.1; the inset is the ERDC-EL workflow consisting of a printable, mangrove-like model.

Removing “Artificial” from Artificial Habitats: 3D Printing Natural Materials to Unlock Complex Nature-Inspired Infrastructure

  • September 22, 2023
Infrastructure design focusing solely on engineering functionality misses opportunities to realize natural resource enhancements to achieve additional economic, environmental, and social benefits. Traditional manufact...
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Engineering With Nature® is the intentional alignment of natural and engineering processes to efficiently and sustainably deliver economic, environmental, and social benefits through collaboration.

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