Ramboll is supporting the US Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) with projects around the world to sustainably deliver economic, environmental and social benefits through multi-disciplinary project integration.
Ramboll has provided support to the USACE’s Engineering Research and Development Center (ERDC) and the USACE regulatory division on multiple projects since 2000.
Engineering with nature
As coined by the USACE-ERDC, Engineering with Nature (EwN) supports more sustainable practices, projects and outcomes through alignment of natural (green) and traditional (gray) engineering to sustainably deliver economic, environmental and social benefits through multi-disciplinary project integration.
EWN integrates traditional engineering with ecology and natural resource economics, to emphasize habitat resilience, natural disaster recovery, carbon sequestration, risk and net benefit analysis, sustainability, and improved habitat and biodiversity.
Sustainable approaches to riverine, lacustrine, and coastal infrastructure can be advanced through the compilation of engineering and natural systems to result in greater resiliency and habitat enhancement. Often such compilation is more cost-effective when operations and maintenance costs are considered in comparison to traditional engineering approaches, while improving ecological flexibility through integration of appropriate plant materials and habitat uplift into design criteria.
Economic analysis and riparian support project for coastal resiliency
Ramboll provides the principal ecologist, lead restoration specialists and project managers for a project that evaluates traditional methods of planning, design, and implementation costing for natural and nature-based features (NNBF) and nature-based structures (NBS) engineering structures in comparison to more traditional approaches to providing coastal resiliency.
Additionally, the project serves as a means of support and technology transfer for riverine restoration design and implementation as driven by regional needs, regulatory obligations, ecological functions and services, and the creation of habitat enhancement and biodiversity.
Contributing to guideline documents
Ramboll staff have acted as contributing authors and subject matter experts for the Natural and Nature-Based Features Guidelines (chapter 9 beaches and dunes, chapter 10 wetlands, chapter 11 coastal islands, chapter 13 submerged aquatic vegetation, chapter 16, 17, 18 fluvial systems). Ramboll’s expertise focused on the integration of restoration plant materials (seed, cuttings, divisions, container plants) into projects to provide bioengineering, resiliency, habitat and biodiversity. The guidelines will be published in Fall 2021.
Providing training
Ramboll provided a USACE-ERDC riparian restoration course instructor for river design and restoration. Process-based and inventory-based design applications were discussed for the 67 primary river restoration projects from the Department of Natural Resources – Colorado Water Conservation Board (DNR – CWCB) Emergency Watershed Protection Program flood recovery efforts, in response to the devastating 2013 flood events. Multiple mountain, transitional and plains reaches were examined and discussed with USACE-ERDC practitioners, including project successes and challenges.
Ramboll staff have also served as wetland vegetation instructors for USACE regulatory personnel since 2000 to assist with the agency’s knowledge, understanding and identification of wetland flora (woody, forb and graminoid). In turn, USACE utilizes this information to assist with determination of wetland criteria for assessment, permitting and regulatory guidance.
Conference speaking
Ramboll staff were featured speakers and participants at multiple USACE EwN NNBF conferences including Santa Cruz, California in 2018 and Edinburgh, Scotland in 2019.