Engineering Matters
#367 Nature Based Solutions: The End of Grey Engineering
Why It Matters
As climate change intensifies flooding and stresses aging infrastructure, relying solely on concrete and steel is increasingly unsustainable and costly. Embracing nature‑based solutions offers a cost‑effective, multi‑benefit approach that can protect communities, boost biodiversity, and even safeguard economic productivity, making this episode timely for engineers, policymakers, and anyone invested in resilient, future‑proof development.
Key Takeaways
- •Nature-based solutions complement, not replace, traditional engineering.
- •Integrated catchment approach reduces flood risk and adds ecosystem benefits.
- •Hybrid leaky dams and beaver reintroduction deliver multi-value returns.
- •Policy shifts and green finance accelerate nature-based solution adoption.
- •Cross-disciplinary teamwork essential for resilient, nature-integrated infrastructure.
Pulse Analysis
The Engineering Matters episode spotlights a new Atkins Realis white paper that frames nature-based solutions (NBS) as a core pillar of future resilient infrastructure. Hosts Tim Sheehan and Alex Conacher interview Dr Laura Lidderman, associate director of NBS, alongside colleagues Claire Wansbury and Zoe Metcalfe. They debunk the myth that green approaches merely replace concrete, emphasizing instead a hybrid toolbox where rivers, wetlands, and vegetation work alongside steel and concrete. By positioning nature at the centre of flood protection, water quality, and climate adaptation, the discussion underscores why engineers must rethink design paradigms in an era of accelerating climate risk.
Listeners hear concrete examples that illustrate NBS’s multi-benefit potential. At Spain’s Hall Estate, leaky dams and beaver reintroduction were modelled with the Natural Capital Studio tool, revealing gains in flood attenuation, biodiversity, carbon sequestration and recreation—each assigned a monetary value to build a robust business case. The episode stresses that treating a catchment as a connected system allows upstream storage or downstream flow diversion to lower peak discharges, reducing reliance on ever-higher flood walls. Such integrated designs not only cut long-term maintenance costs but also deliver cleaner water, healthier habitats, and social wellbeing, turning environmental stewardship into economic advantage.
The conversation turns to policy and finance, noting the Environment Agency’s 2025 Nature-Based Solutions position statement and its evidence directory that embed NBS in regulatory frameworks. Green-finance mechanisms and natural capital accounting are highlighted as levers to fund hybrid projects at scale. Hannah Joyce’s role as a “doctor of rivers” exemplifies the cross-disciplinary teams—geomorphologists, hydrologists, ecologists and engineers—required to translate science into practice. As the white paper argues, the future of resilient infrastructure lies in flexible, nature-integrated solutions that can adapt to shifting climate conditions while delivering measurable economic returns.
Episode Description
For decades, infrastructure design has relied on ‘grey’ engineering: concrete flood walls, steel structures and rigid systems designed to control the environment. But with climate pressures intensifying, engineers are increasingly looking to work with nature rather than against it.
This episode looks at the growing role of nature-based solutions in building climate-resilient infrastructure that can help manage flood risk, restore ecosystems, improve biodiversity and create more resilient communities.
Nature itself should be considered critical infrastructure and an entire generation educated to undertake work differently to that which has been done before.
Guests
Hannah Joyce, Senior Fluvial Geomorphologist, AtkinsRéalis
Laura Liddaman, Associate Director of Nature Based Solutions, AtkinsRéalis
Resources
To access the paper discussed in this episode, a forward-looking vision for the role of nature-based solutions in future-resilient infrastructure, click here
Partner
AtkinsRéalis is a world-leading professional services and project management company dedicated to engineering a better future for our planet and its people. Employing over 37,000 people across Canada, the US and Latin America, the UK and Ireland, and Asia, the Middle East, and Australia, AtkinsRéalis creates sustainable solutions that connect people, data and technology to transform the world’s infrastructure and energy systems
The post #367 Nature Based Solutions: The End of Grey Engineering first appeared on Engineering Matters.
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