Upscaling Nature-Based Coastal Solutions Through Integrated Design: Collaborative Data, Modeling, and Landscape Design for the Deer Island EWN Project

Nature-based coastal solutions (NBCS) are increasingly recognized as effective, adaptable, and multifunctional approaches to mitigating coastal hazards while supporting ecological, economic, and social co-benefits. Despite a rapidly expanding evidence base, scaling of NBCS from localized interventions to regional, systems-level applications remains a fundamental challenge, particularly for long-term planning under accelerating sea-level scenarios, increasing storm intensity, and complex governance environments. This paper presents a comprehensive, interdisciplinary case study of Deer Island, Mississippi (USA), an Engineering With Nature® (EWN®) project that illustrates how integrated science, engineering, landscape architecture, and strategic partnerships can support the design, quantification, and implementation of NBCS at scale.

Deer Island represents a decade-long collaborative effort involving federal, state, academic, and non-profit partners working to stabilize eroding shorelines, restore degraded habitats, and strengthen the island’s overall geomorphic and ecological resilience. A central component of the project is an extensive data-collection program designed to quantify “as-is” island conditions and constrain uncertainty in future performance predictions. This includes topo-bathymetric surveys, sediment coring, vegetation mapping, and hydrodynamic and morphodynamic monitoring. All variations of work that build on the state-of-the-art techniques described in recent coastal resilience literature and research produced by the U.S. Army Corps' Engineering With Nature (EWN) research program. These datasets provide the empirical foundation for both the engineering design and the landscape architectural vision, ensuring that proposed nature-based features are grounded in site-specific processes.
Landscape architects worked alongside engineers and scientists to develop multifunctional NBCS designs that rebuild critical marsh, beach, and dune systems while enhancing habitat connectivity, recreational value, and long-term adaptability. These design concepts were translated into quantitative performance assessments using process-based numerical models that simulate storm surge attenuation, wave energy reduction, sediment transport, and morphological evolution under present and future climate scenarios. These modeling results demonstrate measurable risk-reduction benefits at both the island scale and the broader Mississippi Sound region, underscoring the importance of designing for system connectivity rather than isolated features.
A defining strength of this project is its collaborative, multi-sector governance structure. Regular engagement among engineers, ecologists, coastal managers, landscape architects, federal and state agencies, universities, and local stakeholders enabled iterative refinement of design alternatives, strengthened regulatory alignment, and ensured that both engineering and ecological performance criteria were jointly prioritized. This partnership-driven approach reduced institutional barriers, improved long-term maintenance planning, and provided a replicable model for other regions seeking to scale NBCS through coordinated decision-making.
Deer Island will has entered the construction phase and is marking a critical transition from concept to implementation, and will be monitored for years following. As one of the largest engineered NBCS efforts in America's Gulf waters, it demonstrates how integrated data collection, process-based modeling, and collaborative landscape-informed design can materially advance long-term resilience, reduce uncertainty, and provide transferable pathways for scaling NBCS across diverse environmental and governance contexts.