BUILDING RESILIENCE:

IMPLEMENTING
INNOVATIVE, SUSTAINABLE
FLOOD MITIGATION
SOLUTIONS FOR THE GULF COAST

25-27 FEBRUARY 2010

NEW ORLEANS, LOUISIANA

The challenge of living with water is one shared by cities and communities around the world.
Nowhere is this more true than in New Orleans and the Gulf Coast region, where people live
with a daily awareness of the threat, and opportunity, of water. Please join us at the Building
Resilience Workshop, to be held February 25-27, 2010, in New Orleans, Louisiana, to explore
innovative, sustainable ways of increasing community resilience in the face of global climate
change.

The primary objectives of the Building Resilience Workshop are to bring innovative flood
mitigation techniques successfully used in Germany and the Netherlands to the attention of
North American practitioners, policy-makers and community stakeholders, and to foster
international collaboration to develop local solutions. The information exchange will include
sustainable flood protection practices and strategies to create safe, permanent approaches to
protect established communities and cultures in the face of impending environmental changes.
Cascading levee systems and amphibious housing are urban flood resiliance strategies that are
currently being implemented in other parts of the world. This workshop seeks to raise
awareness of these and other advanced practices, especially among at-risk regions and
populations.

Workshop speakers and participants will address such questions as:

z How have international communities, faced with repeated, catastrophic storm and flood
events, maintained physical and social infrastructures?
z What innovations have occurred in response to catastrophic events?
z How can mitigation strategies that diffuse risk, as opposed to concentrating risk, reduce
a community's overall vulnerability and increase its resilience?
z How might cultures share “best practices” and incorporate innovative, sustainable
technologies more quickly?
z What are the successful approaches that have been used elsewhere to overcome
institutional resistance to change that inhibits the implementation of new strategies?
z How can technical solutions be more responsive to social and cultural needs and
traditional ways of life?
z What are both the physical and cultural implications of redesigning cities for increased
resilience?
z What planning decisions can we make now that will help us build resilience and
adaptability into our cities for the future?
 "BUILDING RESILIENCE" WORKSHOP

Speakers from Germany, the Netherlands and across North America will come together with
local leaders to discuss how flood mitigation strategies such as wetlands restoration, cascading
levee systems, compartmentalization, temporary floodwalls, amphibious housing, wet-proofing
and dry-proofing, elevating, berming, regenerative landscaping, ground surface treatments and
other non-structural approaches can be implemented in the Gulf Coast region in general and
New Orleans in particular. It is a goal of this workshop to create greater local awareness of
approaches that are being implemented successfully in other parts of the world but may not yet
be embraced in the United States or the Gulf Coast region.

The workshop is organized as follows:

We will have four plenary speakers, plus Gen. Russel Honore’ as the keynote speaker. The
rest of the program will be panel discussions, where 6-8 panelists give brief, 5-6 minute
presentations, and then there is discussion first among the panel members and then with the
audience. We will start with issues at the global scale, then regional and urban scale, then
building scale, then community participation and policy implementation issues. Erik Pasche’s
presentation will preceed the panels on regional and urban issues on Friday afternoon, and
Chris Zevenbergen’s presentation will introduce the building scale issues on Saturday morning.
Jack Martin will be the plenary speaker at lunch on Saturday, addressing how to achieve
community and institutional support for implementing new policies. We have invited Larry Buss
from USACE to be the initial plenary speaker, starting us off on Friday morning.

In the short term, the workshop will bring together engineers, architects, planners and academic
researchers specializing in sustainable flood protection practices with policy makers, community
organizers and public officials, helping to expand the knowledge base, build exchange networks
among participants, and develop solutions. In the long term, the workshop will provide a
springboard for the sharing of sustainable, low-impact technologies that save lives and make
vulnerable communities, in North America and elsewhere, more resilient to climate change.

WORKSHOP DATES

25-27 February 2010

CONVENING PARTNERS

Buoyant Foundation Project (www.buoyantfoundation.org)

FutureProof LLC (www.futureproofnola.com)
Global Green (www.globalgreen.org)
Groundwork New Orleans (www.groundworknola.org)
Innovative Green Solutions (www.igsfederal.com)
Lower 9th Ward Center for Sustainable Engagement and Development
Sustainable Ecosystem Restoration LLC (www.restoreecosystems.com)
UNO-CHART (www.chart.uno.edu)
University of Waterloo School of Architecture (www.architecture.uwaterloo.ca)

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 "BUILDING RESILIENCE" WORKSHOP

KEYNOTE SPEAKER

General Russel Honoré (US Army, Ret)

PLENARY SPEAKERS

Erik Pasche (Technical University of Hamburg, Germany)

Chris Zevenbergen (IHE-Unesco; Technical University of Delft; Dura Vermeer, Netherlands)
Jack Martin (North Carolina)
Larry Buss (USACE - confirmation pending)

PANELISTS & PARTICIPANTS

Charles E Allen III (Tulane; Lower 9th Center for Sustainable Engagement and Development)
Don Blancher (Sustainable Ecosystem Restoration)
Craig Colten (LSU)
Elizabeth C English (Buoyant Foundation Project; University of Waterloo, Canada)
Yarrow Etheredge (Groundwork New Orleans)
J O Evans III (FutureProof LLC)
Ivor van Heerden (LSU)
Lisa Miles Jackson (Innovative Green Solutions)
Shirley Laska (UNO CHART)
Marc Levitan (LSU)
Norma Jean Mattei (UNO)
Mack McClendon (Lower 9th Ward Village)
Douglas Meffert (Tulane)
Earthea Nance (UNO CHART; formerly City of New Orleans)
Kristina Peterson Krajeski (UNO CHART)
Jose Villalobos-Enciso (LSU; Universidad Autonoma de Chiapas, Mexico)
Jose Raynal Villasenor (Universidad de las Americas, Puebla, Mexico)
Bernard Ussher (FEMA)
David Waggonner (Waggonner & Ball Architects)
Prisca Weems (FutureProof LLC)
John Williams (Williams Architects)

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 "BUILDING RESILIENCE" WORKSHOP

VENUES

Workshop sessions:
The Old U.S. Mint
400 Esplanade Avenue, New Orleans
http://lsm.crt.state.la.us/mintex.htm

Hotel accommodations:
The Bourbon Orleans Hotel
717 Orleans Street, New Orleans
www.bourbonorleans.com
(group rates available)

Thursday Evening Social Event:

Rock 'N' Bowl
3016 S. Carrollton Avenue, New Orleans
www.rockandbowl.com/Historypage/history.html
(included with workshop registration)

Friday Evening Reception and Lecture by Gen. Russel Honore:

Location TBA
(included with workshop registration)

CONTACTS & REGISTRATION

Website: www.resilienceworkshop.org

Email: info@resilienceworkshop.org

Register: Go to http://www.resilienceworkshop.org/how/how.htm to register now for the Building

Resilience Workshop. Space is limited. $225 early-bird registration fee includes all speakers,
sessions, receptions, lunches & coffee breaks. $250 after February 15.

Reduced fee registration available on a limited basis for panelists, students and participants with
limited income, by application to workshop organizers at info@resilienceworkshop.org.

(2 February 2010)

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