Nature-Inspired Design - Improving Coastal Resilience through Biomimicry

随着全球对沿海地区空间和环境限制的压力不断增加，海岸工程将继续在沿海社区及其关键基础设施系统的开发、维护和保护中发挥重要作用。海岸工程的最新趋势(例如，荷兰的“沙地发动机”；日本将沿海森林纳入海啸防御计划等)。重点是将自然系统纳入沿海复原力措施。这一趋势的理由是提高沿海复原力，同时强调该系统的可持续性，减少长期维护费用，以及增加沿海生境的可用性、碳固存和海岸线的娱乐价值。将这些自然系统纳入海岸复原力措施的相关挑战源于缺乏对这些系统如何适应标准沿海工程做法的了解。这与加拿大特别相关，在加拿大，需要考虑与冻融循环、冰负荷和筑坝有关的复杂过程，因此，需要提出考虑到这些影响的设计和规划建议。这里概述的拟议研究计划旨在加深对如何将自然系统纳入其中的理解，并启发设计具有弹性和可持续的海岸保护。这项研究不仅将为沿海系统内自然地物的设计提供信息，而且旨在确定复杂的地物网络如何能够提供更好的抗洪能力。长期目标是为实践工程师提供必要的方法和工具，以准确复制这些系统，以便在加拿大和国外开发多层次、整体和有弹性的海岸防御系统。预期影响拟议的研究计划预计将显著提高实习工程师和海岸带管理人员将自然和自然启发的系统纳入海岸保护系统的能力和信心。为实践工程师自信地评估受自然启发的系统的性能而开发的工具将是该项目的关键组成部分。此外，物理模型技术的改进不仅有利于沿海工程，而且将使整个水利工程领域更好地了解结构在水力荷载下的动态行为。此外，这项研究计划将培训三(3)名博士和三(3)名硕士学生最先进的物理和数值建模技术，从而提高加拿大在水利和海岸工程中基于自然的设计能力。

With the ever-increasing global pressures on the spatial and environmental constraints experienced by coastal areas, coastal engineering will continue to play an important role in the development, maintenance, and protection of coastal communities and their critical infrastructure systems. Recent trends in coastal engineering (i.e., "The Sand Motor" in the Netherlands; the inclusion of coastal forests into tsunami protection plans in Japan, etc.) focused on incorporating natural systems into coastal resilience measures. The rationale for this trend is to improve coastal resilience, while emphasizing the sustainability of the system, reducing long-term maintenance costs, as well as increasing the availability of coastal habitats, carbon sequestration, and the recreational value of coastlines. Challenges associated with incorporating these natural systems into coastal resilience measures stem from a lack of understanding of how these systems fit within standard coastal engineering practices. This is particularly relevant for Canada, where complex processes related to freeze-thaw cycles, ice loading and damming, need to be considered, therefore, design and planning recommendations to account for such effects need to be developed. The proposed research program, outlined here, aims to develop an understanding of how natural systems can be incorporated in, as well as inspire the design of resilient and sustainable coastal protection. The research will inform not only the design of natural features within the coastal system but aims to establish how complex networks of features can provide improved flood resilience. The long-term goal is to provide practicing engineers with the necessary methodologies and tools for accurately reproducing these systems for the development of multi-tiered, holistic, and resilient coastal defence systems within Canada and abroad. Expected Impact The proposed research program is expected to significantly improve the ability and confidence of practicing engineers and coastal zone managers in incorporating natural and nature-inspired systems into coastal protection systems. The development of tools for practicing engineers to confidently assess the performance of nature-inspired systems will be a critical component of the project. Additionally, the improvements in physical modelling techniques will not only benefit coastal engineering, but the hydraulic engineering field as a whole, by developing a better understanding of dynamic structural behaviour under hydraulic loading. Furthermore, this research program will train three (3) PhD and three (3) Master's students in state-of-the-art physical and numerical modelling techniques, thus improving Canada's capacity for nature-based design in hydraulic and coastal engineering.