Engineering With Empathy: Cultivating equitable collaboration for water infrastructure planning for Tribal Nations
Project Overview
Tribal nations may experience a number of water-related challenges, which can have profound impacts on wellbeing:
- Impaired water quality and pollution
- Inadequate water quantity, storage, or distribution
- Negative infrastructure impacts to culturally important landscapes, sites or species
- Lack of connectivity or access for humans and other species
There are 574 federally recognized Native American tribes across what is now known as the United States. Due to historical and ongoing exclusion, Tribal Nations often do not have control of decision making processes for natural resource infrastructure, even on Tribal land. By collaborating with Tribes across the country, this collaborative effort from UGA and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers aims to manage water resources more holistically and equitably.

Meet the Team
This project spans multiple organizations partnered through the Network for Engineering With Nature (N-EWN), a collaborative organization co-founded by the Institute for Resilient Infrastructure Systems and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
The UGA and USACE teams are joined by interdisciplinary experts and tribal liaisons from the Tribal Nations Technical Center of Expertise (TNTCX), established by USACE in order to provide a cost-effective administrative tool to improve USACE’s quality and effectiveness in delivering USACE missions and Federal Trust responsibilities to Federally recognized tribes. Learn more about TNTCX here.



Don Nelson, Ph.D.
Professor, Department of Anthropology
dnelson@uga.edu

Katie Foster, Ph.D.
Postdoctoral Researcher, Network for Engineering With Nature & Department of Anthropology
k.gibson@uga.edu

Janaki Mohanachandran
PhD Student, Department of Anthropology

Gabrielle Langhorn
Ph.D. Candidate, Department of Anthropology
Jonathan Hallemeier, Ph.D.
Environmental Social Scientist, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers
Brian Zettle
Senior Biologist & Tribal Liaison, Tribal Technical Center for Expertise (TNTCX)
Mark Gilfillan
Project Manager & Tribal Liaison, Tribal Technical Center for Expertise (TNTCX)
Aubrey Harris
Research Civil Engineer, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers
Arianna Kitchens
Anthropologist, Tribal Technical Center for Expertise (TNTCX)
Kyle McKay, Ph.D.
Research Civil Engineer, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers
Ann Strange
Geographer, Tribal Technical Center for Expertise (TNTCX)
objective: provide guidelines to help usace and tribal staff build collaborations for water resource projects
our steps to successful collaboration
Assess
- Knowledge: of the landscape, history, cultural norms, Tribal laws and government structures.
- Intentions: openness to other worldviews and knowledge systems.
- Capacity: available time, funding, and resources.

Build
- Relationships:
- Start early. Reach out in anticipation of project development.
- Build on existing networks. Tribal Liaisons and TNTCX can provide support.
- Prioritize human connection. Engage in face-to-face meetings, share meals, and attend events.
- Practice humility. Approach partnerships with patience, openness, and respect.
- Mutual Understanding:
- Co-establish communication and decision-making processes. Be responsive to varying needs, obligations, sensitivities, and seasonal timelines. Identify points of contact and responsibilities.
- Address histories and constraints while developing shared visions. Give space to learn from past experiences, fraught histories, and former successes.
- Understand Tribal goals and USACE authorities. Consider projects within a broader context of the Tribe’s long-term vision and workforce development, and agency dynamics.
- Adhere to cultural protocols. Be aware of norms like allowing Tribal elders and USACE leaders to speak first, opening meetings with blessings, etc.
- Weave knowledges. Respect the contributions of Native science and maintain Tribal data sovereignty.
Sustain
- Commitment & Celebration:
- Be consistent and reliable. Maintain transparency and follow through on commitments.
- Celebrate achievements together. Acknowledge each other’s contributions.
- Memorialize Progress:
- Develop mechanisms for continued contact. Cement organizational relationships through MOUs, annual meetings, etc., which persist beyond personnel turnover.
- Preserve institutional memory. Develop strategies to document and share information like archives, succession plans, and mentoring or onboarding programs.
- Prepare & Adapt to Change:
- Document partnership norms and knowledge. Keep records of project histories, personnel, expectations, and responsibilities to easily pass on information.
- Revisit collaboration needs. Make time to assess and refine procedures and react to changes.
what we’re doing
This project involves building relationships on multiple scales, engaging on the individual, team-based, and organizational levels.
As of 2024, UGA and USACE have held two listening sessions including representatives from 11 Tribal Nations. These listening sessions were intended to:
- Discuss Tribal relationships to water and identify ways to incorporate Tribal perspectives on hydrological processes and ecosystem function in water management.
- Elicit past experiences of Tribes with working with USACE and determine how those relationships can be improved at the personal and institutional levels.
- Develop processes for joint decision making related to water supply and quality management and create procedures to align infrastructure project goals with community priorities.
