Synthesizing Guidelines and Lessons Learned for Implementation of Riverine Nature-Based Solutions (NBS) near to Transportation Infrastructure
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Abstract: Nature-based solutions (NBS) have become more prevalent alternatives to address the negative impacts facing transportation infrastructure located near to rivers under non-stationarities like climate change. NBS here refers to techniques that use natural materials and natural conditions, including engineered structures that incorporate natural processes and materials. In riverine environments, that is those environments near to, crossing, or otherwise interacting with rivers and their surrounding landscape, NBS provide one way to simultaneously address the risks due to river impacts on transportation infrastructure and the environmental issues associated with transportation infrastructure’s encroachment on rivers. In this research, we synthesize select national and state level documents that provide guidelines for riverine NBS in the United States. These seven documents were developed between 2005 and 2021, including reports for four different states across the U.S. They represent a selection of existing guidelines that can be useful for present and future design, planning and implementation, and monitoring and maintenance of projects incorporating NBS in individual states and across the U.S. This research also focuses on a specific case study, the Trout River Restoration Project in Vermont, highlighting a successful NBS project and the invaluable lessons learned. In this project, more than ten different types of NBS were installed on a reach of the Trout River in 1999, and monitored for a year after installation. Assessment of qualitative and quantitative metrics demonstrated the overwhelming success of this project. The lessons learned from this project’s design process, planning and implementation challenges and solutions, and monitoring and maintenance efforts are beneficial to other projects in this geographic location and elsewhere.