Skip to main content

green building

The Dutch Sand Engine experiment in dynamic coastline management is an artificial sand beach designed to erode. Sand pulled away from the 126-ha peninsula by wave, wind, and currents spreads along the Delfland Coast of The Netherlands, naturally nourishing a shoreline that has suffered rapid erosion. The project, a collaboration of government, private industry, and academic researchers, was completed in 2011 and is expected to maintain the shoreline for the next 20 years. The peninsula is also popular with wind and kite surfers. Guest editor Kristina reviews innovations in coastal infrastructure designed to work with storm surge, sea level rise, and other natural processes in “Coastal infrastructure: a typology for the next century of adaptation to sea-level rise,” on page 468 of the November Special Centennial Issue of ESA Frontiers.

Building with Nature: the Dutch Sand Engine

“Cities are emergent systems, with only 5 to 7 thousand years of history, mostly during the relative climatic stability of the Holocene,” said guest editor Kristina Hill, an associate professor at UC Berkeley’s College of Environmental Design. “We’ve never tried to operate a city during a rapid climate change, especially not on the scale of population we now have, with our largest cities housing upwards of 20 million people.”

Read More

ESA Policy News: September 27

WILDLIFE: letter of support for conservation programs
UNITED NATIONS: IPCC report released
HOUSE: testimony on climate action plan
EPA: new carbon standards for powerplants
SCIENCE: Golden Goose awards

Read More

New World Trade Center goes for gold

By Peter Janetos, ESA public affairs intern On September 11th 2001 the two iconic towers overseeing the New York City skyline, were reduced to a heaping pile of rubble and destruction. Twelve years later, a new World Trade Center (WTC) complex is emerging that aims to achieve the “gold” certification in its building design.  LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental…

Read More

Psychologist, green building manager, religious leader urge ecologists to move beyond their own scientific community

The Ecological Society of America’s 96th Annual Meeting is taking place in Austin, Texas and kicked off on Sunday, August 7 with an Opening Plenary Panel featuring Richard Morgan, Austin Energy’s Green Building and Sustainability Manager, social psychologist, Susan Clayton of the College of Wooster, and the Executive Director of the National Religious Partnership for the Environment, Matthew Anderson-Stembridge.  Joining…

Read More

Green roofs: not just for looks

What is an innovative method to reduce both heating and cooling in buildings, reduce storm water run-off, preserve natural habitats and even refrigerate warehouse beer? According to scientists at the Ecological Society of America’s 95th Annual Meeting in Pittsburgh: green roofs. These vegetated roofs, as the ecologists explained yesterday in “Rooftop ecology: what is a green roof and why should ecologists care?” provide a wide array of economic, architectural and environmental benefits.

Read More

Warning: array_map(): Expected parameter 2 to be an array, null given in /home/esaorg/public_html/wp-content/themes/esa-main/inc/functions/nav_pagination.php on line 49