Historically, water resources infrastructure design has focused on achieving defined engineering goals using known means, an approach that yields clear performance expectations but reduces innovation potential.
Natural infrastructure, on the other hand, offers superior adaptive capacity, greater resilience, broader societal and ecological benefits, and often reduced costs when compared to conventional structural measures — but realizing this value requires innovation.
Consensus is emerging on the potential benefits of natural infrastructure for coastal communities. In comparison to conventional structural measures, natural infrastructure offers superior adaptive capacity, greater resilience, broad societal and ecological value, and often reduced costs.
However, the forms of natural infrastructure deployed by designers, engineers, land managers, and planners remain limited, especially in comparison to the richness offered by natural landscapes in coastal areas. We believe that better aligning infrastructure design with the specificity of place and environment is key to maximizing the benefits of natural infrastructure.
Case Study: The White Ribbon @ Illinois Beach State Park.
The White Ribbon is an innovative coastal resilience pilot project constructed in 2021, with monitoring ongoing. The feature is the result of research that sought to develop a coastal protection feature that could protect rare terrestrial habitat from accelerated coastal erosion with in-water habitat features.
The objective of this pilot project is to reduce the wave energy in the nearshore environment without disturbing longshore sediment movement. The underwater ridges of the design are more adaptive to the natural systems and less noticeable to the public eye than vertical breakwaters.
Learn more here.