Managing floods, erosion, and living coastlines, with Mike Lynn

So much of the conversation around water revolves around its scarcity. Today we’ll get a chance to explore how to manage water regeneratively when the challenge is having too much. As arid zones become drier, the opposite is proving true for humid zones. The North American eastern seaboard is looking like an emblematic case of this. As storms become stronger and charged with massive evaporation from warmer temperatures and a warmer ocean, flooding erosion and saturation are becoming bigger issues. Coastlines as well are struggling with these issues as well as the degradation of their delicate vegetation, and poorly applied gray infrastructure. To get a better understanding of these ecological challenges, I reached out to a good friend Mike Lynn. Michael Lynn is an ecological designer with United Designers International and owner of Eastern Ecosystems. He has worked on numerous projects around the world including large-scale watershed restoration, agricultural and agroforestry production systems, and ecological restoration. Around the Chesapeake Bay in the US, he works with storm water management, ecological restoration, and living shorelines projects. With a passion for education, Mike provides training for a wide array of audiences.

Mike has worked in ecological design for more than a decade, starting out with small scale homestead and farm designs to large scale landscape design, watershed management, and ecosystem restoration. Having had a career in public safety, He’s seen first hand the devastating effects of climatic disasters and I recognize that nature based solutions are the way forward.

​

In this episode we’ll not only explore Mike’s fascinating background and path to ecological design, we’ll take the time to focus on the evolving challenges of water management when safe drainage and removal of excess water is the objective over retention and capture.