WEDA announces webinar on environmental risks of dredging

Western Dredging Association (WEDA) has announced its next webinar titled “A New PIANC Guideline for Managing Environmental Risks of Navigation Infrastructure Projects” will take place on Friday, May 28, 2021 at 1 PM EST.

This joint webinar between PIANC, ERDC, and WEDA will focus on PIANC’s Environmental Commission’s development of a standard of practice to support ports and other public and commercial navigation interests in managing environmental risks associated with navigation infrastructure projects.

Managing environmental risks from navigation infrastructure involves economic and environmental costs, and is complicated by the diverse range of policies, perspectives, risk attitudes, and personal values that influence decision-making.

The report provides a robust yet practical approach to risk management decision-making for the broad range of environmental risks associated with navigation infrastructure.

Effectively managing infrastructure project risk must consider multiple physical, chemical, biological, and socioeconomic processes that can span broad spatial and temporal scales.

Understanding and clearly articulating uncertainties related to these processes is essential to developing projections regarding the future performance of risk management actions and effective adaptive management strategies.

During the webinar, an overview will be provided of the structured management process through which actions for reducing environmental risks can be identified, evaluated, selected, and implemented.

Uncertainty (e.g., short-term infrastructure operations), long-range risks (e.g., climate change), residual risk, the resiliency of natural features, and the role of sustainability and life-cycle analysis in risk management will be discussed. The approach is compatible with PIANC’s Working with Nature philosophy, considering existing approaches and current best practices worldwide.

Working Group members representing the United States will be presenting an overview of the report and its relevance to WEDA members in general and dredging projects in particular.

Presenters:

• Rebecca Gardner
  Principal Engineer, Anchor QEA, LLC
  
• Burton Suedel, Ph.D.
  Research Biologist, USACE Engineer Research & Development Center
  
• David Moore
  Research Biologist, USACE Engineer Research & Development Center