From Principles to Practice: Learnings from the Living Shorelines Tech Transfer Workshop in New Haven
By: Katie Dafforn, Director
Living shorelines and other nature-based solutions (NBS) are increasingly central to how coastal communities respond to sea level rise, intensifying storms, and chronic flooding. But progressing from design to impact requires clear objectives, willingness to challenge the status quo, and a commitment to work with dynamic natural systems rather than against them.
These were central themes at the Living Shorelines Tech Transfer Workshop, held October 29–30, 2025, in New Haven, Connecticut, where practitioners, researchers, designers, and regulators came together to share experiences and lessons from across the region. I presented a poster on the Stone Living Lab (SLL) to highlight how our partnership has evolved over the last five years and where we are heading next, and talked with current and potential future partners such as Natrx, after NATURE and SumCo about different research opportunities.
The workshop highlight was a keynote by Todd Bridges, Founder of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ Engineering With Nature® Program, who offered a practical framework for advancing NBS. His six steps emphasized not only what to do, but how to think differently about working with nature. These have been summarized below:
1. Be clear about project purpose
Bridges stressed that clarity of purpose is foundational. Is a project intended primarily for erosion control, flood damage reduction, habitat enhancement, or all three? Nature-based solutions are inherently multi-purpose, often delivering economic, environmental, and social benefits simultaneously. Without a clearly articulated purpose, it becomes difficult to design, evaluate, and justify NBS projects to decision-makers and communities alike.
2. Avoid the false dilemma of “either–or”
Progress depends on getting the “and” right. This means rejecting the idea that nature-based solutions must replace gray infrastructure, or vice versa. Instead, Bridges emphasized that effective resilience strategies often emerge from integrated systems, where natural and engineered elements work together. The goal is not choosing between nature or infrastructure, but designing solutions that leverage both, in ways that are mutually reinforcing.
3. Focus on all aspects of scale
Scale is not just about size, but it’s also about being fit for purpose. The size of the solution must match its purpose, and a single “solution” may consist of many interconnected parts. Importantly, NBS do not need to be built all at once. Phased implementation, and adaptive designs allow projects to evolve over time while still contributing meaningfully to project objectives.
4. Resist the constraint fallacy
A common barrier to NBS, particularly in urban environments, is the assumption that there simply isn’t enough room. Bridges challenged participants to ask if there truly is no space, or are we defining the solution too narrowly? By rethinking shorelines, floodplains, and multi-use spaces, opportunities for NBS may emerge where they were previously overlooked.
5. Challenge foolish statements about NBS
Bridges underscored that science must lead, but at the same time, uncertainty should not become an excuse for inaction. Adaptive management, monitoring, and learning-by-doing are essential in the face of accelerating climate risks.
6. Be an agent of change
Finally, Bridges emphasized that transformational change is both needed and coming, and that progress does not happen in isolation. “Progress runs on the rails of relationships,” he noted, urging participants to invest in partnerships across disciplines, agencies, communities, and sectors. Advancing NBS at scale requires trust, shared purpose, and sustained collaboration as much as technical expertise.
To illustrate this mindset shift, Bridges shared a quote from The Great River: The Making and Unmaking of the Mississippi by Boyce Upholt, recounting a conversation with Rosina Philippe, an elder of the Grand Bayou Atakapa-Ishtak/Chawasha Tribe:
“Her ancestors did not try to fight nature or conquer it. They accepted its floods. They accepted its mud, too—and saw it as a gift, a rich supply of new soils and nutrients that feed crops and shrimp and fish.”
The reflection offered a powerful reminder that systems we often frame as problems such as flooding, sediment, shoreline change, can also be sources of resilience, if approached with humility, evidence, and respect for long-standing knowledge systems.