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Report on Achieving Environmental Sustainability in the USACE

Published July 12, 2016
Report on Achieving Environmental Sustainability in the USACE

Report on Achieving Environmental Sustainability in the USACE

ALEXANDRIA, VIRGINIA.   – IWR Report 2014-R-05 Fostering Sustainability – A Conceptual Framework for Achieving Environmental Sustainability in the Project Footprint of the US Army Corps of Engineers Civil Works Program.
After 13 years of significant progress following issuance of USACE Environmental Operating Principles (EOP), the progress towards achievement of environmental sustainability remains stifled.  The reasons, as identified and addressed in this report produced by the Institute for Water Resources (IWR), can be summarized as incomplete management of eleven major issues.  The report thus presents an overall conceptual framework for improved administration of five core issues.  These include (1) shortcomings in objective specification, (2) adaptive systems management, (3) inventory of conditions, (4) visions of sustainable environments, and (5) strategies for achievement.  

The proper handling of these issues depends on the concurrent management of six peripheral issues: benefits measurement, policy integration, collaborative integrated resource management, regional assessment process; systems-context project planning; and the tools and training needed for a systems approach.  

The framework is intended to reduce management fragmentation and planning uncertainty by organizing both framework-guided and opportunistic improvements into a more coherent, systematically planned, but flexible approach to guiding environmental sustainability achievement.  Download the full report from the IWR website.

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