Coastal communities around the world are facing increased coastal flooding and shoreline erosion from factors such as sea-level rise and unsustainable development practices. Coastal engineers and managers often rely on gray infrastructure such as seawalls, levees and breakwaters, but are increasingly seeking to incorporate more sustainable natural and nature-based features (NNBF). While coastal restoration projects have been happening for decades, NNBF projects go above and beyond coastal restoration. They seek to provide communities with coastal protection from storms, erosion, and/or flooding while also providing some of the other natural benefits that restored habitats provide. Yet there remain many unknowns about how to design and implement these projects. This study examines three innovative coastal resilience projects that use NNBF approaches to improve coastal community resilience to flooding while providing a host of other benefits: 1) Living Breakwaters in New York Harbor; 2) the Coastal Texas Protection and Restoration Study; and 3) the South Bay Salt Pond Restoration Project in San Francisco Bay. We synthesize findings from these case studies to report areas of progress and illustrate remaining challenges. All three case studies began with innovative project funding and framing that enabled expansion beyond a sole focus on flood risk reduction to include multiple functions and benefits. Each project involved stakeholder engagement and incorporated feedback into the design process. In the Texas case study this dramatically shifted one part of the project design from a more traditional, gray approach to a more natural hybrid solution. We also identified common challenges related to permitting and funding, which often arise as a consequence of uncertainties in performance and long-term sustainability for diverse NNBF approaches. The Living Breakwaters project is helping to address these uncertainties by using detailed computational and physical modeling and a variety of experimental morphologies to help facilitate learning while monitoring future performance. This paper informs and improves future sustainable coastal resilience projects by learning from these past innovations, highlighting the need for integrated and robust monitoring plans for projects after implementation, and emphasizing the critical role of stakeholder engagement.
Serving the severely psychiatrically disabled client within the VR system often generates concerns regarding appropriateness of referrals and productivity.The authors describe a process used in one state VR agency to address these concerns by having staff identify key referral and service criteria that they would use in serving these clients. The effort was directed not at identifying predictors of success but rather variables that counselors would evaluate to make them feel positive about moving a client into the VR system or providing certain types of services once they became active clients.
Europe is currently the leader in offshore wind (OSW) energy with over 4.3 gigawatts (GW) of installed capacity, 13 offshore wind farms currently under construction, and significant ongoing plans for future growth and development of the industry [EWEA, 2012]. Europe's established port facilities offer guidance, demonstrating current infrastructure requirements and projecting future needs of the industry as U.S. ports begin to prepare for the offshore wind industry. This paper considers select examples of existing European offshore wind staging and installation ports that support offshore wind projects in European waters. This paper presents a brief comparison of traditional ports as opposed to offshore wind ports, followed by discussion of critical criteria for a successful staging and installation port. These criteria include: upland area; wharf length; deck live load capacity; navigable depth; and air draft restrictions.Understanding the requirements of an effective staging and installation port, this paper includes recommendations on how existing North American ports can meet the minimum port capability for offshore wind development.
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