CHARLESTON, S.C. (WCBD) – The City of Charleston is working with a number of companions to come up with options for flooding, through the use of nature itself.
Wednesday kicked off the Nature-Based Exchange workshop sequence. Charleston City leaders met with the Nature Conservancy, Biohabitats, and different teams on the Clemson Design Center.
Organizers mentioned the purpose is to perceive the worth of nature in serving to solve points across the Lowcountry. With this approach, the group hopes to defend salt marshes and mitigate flooding.
“When we think about infrastructure, we tend to think of gray infrastructure. Roads and concrete and pipes and steel,” mentioned Dale Morris, the town’s Chief Resilience Officer. “Mother nature has a bunch of infrastructure too. Mother nature provides a lot of benefits to us, and we need to find ways to bring that approach into our engineered systems.”
Some nature-based tasks are already within the works. In West Ashley, there are plans to restore the Church Creek Basin. The consultants have additionally been implementing residing shorelines all through the state. They mentioned it’s a pure different to seawalls that makes use of pure supplies like vegetation or oyster reefs.
“We are now working on the largest living shoreline, it’s an acre in size, which will be up in Georgetown,” mentioned Elizabeth Fly with the Nature Conservancy.
According to Keith Bowers, the founding father of Biohabitats, the companions are working on a conservation plan for Johns Island.
“Our whole idea here is that we can go back to nature and learn from nature,” mentioned Bowers.
The subsequent workshop will occur in July.