BATON ROUGE, La. (Feb. 1, 2024) – Virtual registration is open for the Network for Engineering with Nature and the National Academy of Sciences' Gulf Research Program’s upcoming Policy Forum on Nature-based Solutions Feb. 7-8.
The free event brings together policymakers, regulators, practitioners, academics, and others involved in the funding, policymaking, design, and/or construction of nature-based solutions, to discuss implementation of wider benefit analysis in water resource projects.
Evaluating the benefits for water resources projects can include so much more than just the dollar value of properties a project would protect. The science of quantifying additional environmental and social benefits has advanced, and if applied, could provide a more complete assessment of how such nature-based solutions complement and enhance traditional infrastructure projects.
The policy forum builds off work by The Water Institute released in 2023, “Enhancing benefits evaluation for water resources projects: Towards a more comprehensive approach for nature-based solutions,” as well as a “Measuring What Matters Summit” held in Washington, D.C. in late 2022.
In that work, the Institute collaborated with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) Engineering With Nature® Initiative, to identify and evaluate a number of completed Chief’s Reports to determine if there is an opportunity to further quantify the environmental and social costs and benefits of proposed nature-based solutions. These additional evaluations included factors that may have contributed to prioritization of conventional over natural infrastructure as well as benefits that may not have been fully captured by the current approach.
The upcoming event will delve into the potential of nature-based solutions for infrastructure development, climate change solutions, and community revitalization. In addition, the forum will identify and discuss major obstacles in policy and implementation challenges of effectively implementing nature-based solutions. There will be a specific focus on financing nature-based solutions and the permitting processes, as well as ensuring nature-based solution projects are carried out in an equitable and just way.
The event promises to foster actionable dialogues to enhance the implementation and impact of nature-based solutions on a global scale.
More information and registration for virtual attendance here.
Read more about the Institute's foundational work for the conference here