USACE Releases Civil Works Strategic Plan

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) has released its “Sustainable Solutions to America’s Water Resources Needs: Civil Works Strategic Plan 2014-2018” that articulates five goals that will guide USACE into the future.

According to the USACE director of Civil Works, Steven L. Stockton, “This strategic plan presents USACE’s commitment to responsibly develop the Nation’s water resources, while protecting, restoring and sustaining environmental quality. USACE is dedicated to learning from the past and adapting the organization to ensure the U.S. enjoys a prosperous and sustainable future.”

USACE has been a leader in developing and managing water resources in the United States for more than 230 years and is committed to continuing the advancement of its Civil Works Program through the five strategic goals presented in the Strategic Plan.

Those goals are to:

• Transform the Civil Works Program to deliver sustainable water resources solutions through Integrated Water Resources Management;
• Improve the safety and resilience of communities and water resources infrastructure;
• Facilitate the transportation of commerce goods on the Nation’s coastal channels and inland waterways;
• Restore, protect, and manage aquatic ecosystems to benefit the Nation; and
• Manage the life-cycle of water resources infrastructure systems in order to consistently deliver sustainable services.

The Strategic Plan will guide USACE mission accomplishment and translate the organization’s vision into reality. The plan lays out an overarching Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) strategy that embraces a holistic focus on water resources challenges and opportunities that reflects development and management of water, land and related resources.

The IWRM approach is supported by six cross-cutting, overarching strategies:

• Systems Approach – Water resources planning and management should be watershed-based using systems analysis methods and tools to understand, assess and model the interconnected nature of hydrologic watersheds/systems, the economic and ecologic systems they support, and identify and evaluate management alternatives and holistic inputs and outputs.
• Collaboration and Partnering – Build and sustain collaboration and partnerships with other agencies and organizations at all levels to leverage authorities, resources, talent, data, and research.
• Risk-Informed Decision Making and Communication – Develop and employ risk- and reliability-based approaches that incorporate consequence analysis, especially risk to humans; identify, evaluate, and forestall possible failure mechanisms; and quantify and communicate residual risk.
• Innovative Financing – Seek innovative arrangements such as public-private partnerships, revised funding prioritizations, and other appropriate funding mechanisms to develop and sustain water resources infrastructure.
• Adaptive Management – Use adaptive management, a life-cycle decision process that promotes flexible decision making that can be adjusted in the face of risks and uncertainties, as outcomes from management actions and other events become better understood through monitoring and improved knowledge.
• State-of-the-Art Technology – Embrace new and emerging technology and research that improve infrastructure resiliency, assist in updating design criteria, improve approaches toward planning and design, and support smart decisions.

“Sustainable Solutions to America’s Water Resources Needs: Civil Works Strategic Plan 2014-2018” is available on the web.