BATON ROUGE, La. (Oct. 20, 2021) – A new Engineering With Nature (EWN) Podcast, “Considering and Evaluating the Benefits of Natural Infrastructure,” available now examines how and why it’s important to measure the environmental and social costs and benefits of infrastructure investments.
Episode two in the EWN series continues the discussion with guests Todd Bridges, Senior Research Scientist for Environmental Science with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and National Lead for EWN; Sarah Murdock, Director of U.S. Climate Resilience and Water Policy at The Nature Conservancy; Justin Ehrenwerth, President and CEO of The Water Institute of the Gulf; and Mindy Simmons, Senior Policy Advisor, Aquatic Ecosystem Restoration Business Line Manager at the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
The podcast focuses on how clearly defining the benefits and costs of natural and nature-based solutions is a critical factor in unleashing the power that nature can play in protecting our economy, environment and communities.
“For organizations making investments in such strategies, they need to understand, at a fundamental level, the value of these investments,” Bridges said.
By quantifying the environmental and social benefits of nature-based solutions, it’s possible to more rigorously assess strategies for making communities more resilient in the face of a changing climate with more frequent and severe storms.
"When you rigorously quantify environmental and social benefits, you get a more complete picture through which funding decisions can be made," Ehrenwerth said. "The Water Institute is proud to be collaborating with the Corps and so many other partners on this critically important work."
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