• Julie Beagle
• Dr. Mark Strudley

Julie Beagle and Dr. Mark Strudley discuss how Engineering With Nature strategies and design elements injected into the design of the Pajaro River at Watsonville levee reconstruction project position the project to achieve multi-benefit flood risk reduction, including enhancement of groundwater recharge. Partnership between local (PRFMA), State (DWR Flood-Mar Group), and federal (USACE) agencies afford the opportunity to use unique design tools, including the EcoFIP toolkit (Ecological Floodplain Inundation Potential), to envision cost saving measures that simultaneously offer enhanced recharge and ecological benefits. This is especially important not only because this strategy has factored in to the advancement of a long-awaited flood risk reduction project, but because the Pajaro Valley Groundwater Basin is one of the most critically overdrafted basins in the State.

• United States Army Corps of Engineers
• Pajaro Regional Flood Management Agency

• Local, State, and Federal Policies and Legal Considerations
• Recharge and Extraction Methods and Measurement
• Tool and Application Development