Designing and Evaluating Nature-Based Solutions for Coastal Resilience

Coastal environments in the United States range from natural sandy beaches and marsh grass fields to developed, active ports and picturesque marinas. These diverse shorelines must contend with the effects of climate change, such as sea level rise, intensified storms, and subsequent increase in flooding and damage to the natural and built environment. To date, the deployable coastal resilience measures, those with permitting structures, consist of “hard” materials such as concrete. Hard infrastructure has the benefit of predictable performance but cannot readily adapt to different coastal environments and climate change scenarios. Nature-based solutions (NBS) offer the potential for “soft” or “hybrid” resilience infrastructure with natural elements such as vegetation that can adapt to specific environments and changing sea states. NBS examples include living shorelines, dune restoration, and oyster reefs. Though the idea of NBS is becoming more mainstream in scientific literature, the multiplicity of NBS types makes their effectiveness difficult to quantify and design. Here, we present the evaluation and effectiveness of a particular NBS called the Emerald Tutu, networks of floating vegetated canopies that aim to be adaptable to a variety of coastal environments. Our lab tests and numerical model simulations of the Tutu network aim to provide a framework for understanding how NBS impact coastal flood reduction, specifically how the network acts to dampen incoming wave energy. In this talk, we will also explore the limitations of the Tutu network that could be filled by other NBS types or hard infrastructure, and how our ecological tests suggest a framework for how to include environmental co-benefits in the evaluation of NBS designs

Speaker: Julia Hopkins, Northeastern University