No longer just for coastal areas, WEDG 3.0 adds inland waterfronts to its certification.
By Clare Jacobson
Funded through the Rebuild Illinois capital plan, each breakwater features new below- and above-water habitats. Image courtesy Living Habitats.
In October 2023, the New York?based nonprofit Waterfront Alliance launched version 3.0 of its Waterfront Edge Design Guidelines (WEDG) and revised its WEDG Professionals Course, which the group describes as ?tools for sites building resilience, ecology, and access at the water?s edge.? WEDG was updated in part to maintain best practices and to surpass regulatory codes, says Joseph Sutkowi, the chief waterfront design officer at the Waterfront Alliance. He notes changes to benchmarks for community engagement, long-term maintenance planning, and protection for flooding beyond a site?s property line. The most noteworthy update to WEDG is its inclusion of lake and river environments. Version 1.0, released in 2015, applied only to the New York and New Jersey harbor; version 2.0 was launched in 2019 for coastal sites across the United States. Version 3.0, Sutkowi says, was developed in response to overt demand. ?We had conversations with folks in inland cities?Nashville, Muskegon, Detroit, Toronto?about the idea of expanding into freshwater systems,? he says. ?And when we started to look into the applicability of the standard, we saw that there was more overlap than we expected.?
Elvis Wong, an associate at SWA?s Laguna Beach office,...