AN OVERVIEW OF THE DEVELOPMENT, EXPANSION, AND APPLICATION OF THE ENGINEERING WITH NATURE® MODELING TOOLKIT

Nature-based Solutions (NbS) are increasingly being considered for implementation in coastal engineering projects around the world as a means of enhancing coastal protection, resiliency, and sustainability. With this increased emphasis on nature-based features, the need to evaluate the efficacy of NbS project designs has never been greater. Numerical models are powerful tools that can be leveraged to assess and quantify the hydrodynamic impact and protective capacity of nature- based features. However, numerical modeling of NbS is often difficult due to the amount of time and expertise required, as well as the lack of standardized approaches within the modeling co mmun ity of practice for characterizing these features. In order to address this need, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ (USACE) Engineering With Nature® (EWN) program has funded researchers from USACE’s Engineer Research and Development Center (ERDC) to develop a tool called the Engineering With Nature® Modeling Toolkit to streamline and standardize the incorporation of Nature-based Solutions in numerical model frameworks.