It’s spring! Mother Nature is in high gear and so is our Nature-based Solutions (NbS) Team! In April of each year, our Team begins preparing for the growing season; they’re eager to get outside for both new projects and on-going projects.
Preparing for a New Season
The majority of NbS’ natural resource work is completed during the growing season. With NbS work included in a large number of Civiltech projects, the fall and winter have been filled with prep work including desktop reviews, regulatory reviews, and project scheduling. In our first growing season, NbS already has seven projects in motion with four more in the hopper.
As NbS at Civiltech is one of our newest services, this past off-season has been busy building the NbS Department. The NbS Team ordered field gear and worked with Civiltech’s GPS experts to establish field data intake methodologies. The NbS Team now has a field tablet with ArcGIS Field Maps and Survey 123, customized for NbS’ data collections needs. Civiltech can collect natural resource data in the field to a one-centimeter accuracy horizontally and vertically, meeting federal, state, and local requirements. The NbS Team has also been developing templates to present their data, including a wetland report; buffer memorandum; tree survey report; Maintenance, Monitoring, and Management Report; and Critical Issue Analyses Report.
Ecologically, spring is when vegetation and soil conditions are right for our NbS team to start collecting data. Although timing is most often established by regulations, weather conditions vary from year to year and the beginning and ending of the growing season can vary slightly. Too early in the growing season can be problematic as vegetation may be matted down from winter weather and plants may still just be emerging. Conversely, post-growing season may be acceptable if fall weather conditions have delayed dormancy.
Habitat Surveys and Species Surveys
One type of study the NbS natural resource team performs is a Habitat Survey. These surveys can include mapping habitat types, as well as identifying suitable habitats that support specific plant and animal species. Also, these surveys can include federal or state listed rare, threatened, or endangered species. Another study the NbS Team performs is a Species Survey. These surveys focus on the presence, absence, distribution, and abundance of a specific species within a project area. Habitat Surveys and Species Surveys that are most common and today include the eastern prairie fringed orchid, the rusty patched bumble bee, and the northern long-eared bat. The timing of these surveys is often based on key ecological factors, such as when a plant is flowering or when an animal is breeding. These and other behaviors can restrict opportunities to perform Habitat Surveys and Species Surveys and can narrow the survey window, potentially affecting project schedules. 
Wetland Delineations
For many projects, the most pressing study is the wetland delineation. The limits of these valuable ecosystems can play a big part in the Phase I and Phase II process. The first step in the wetland delineation process is a desktop review, which involves researching potential wetland characteristics through aerials, wetland maps, FEMA FIRMs, soil surveys, topographical maps, and hydrologic atlases. This desktop review helps our NbS Team identify potential wetland investigation sites. For larger or more complicated project areas, an initial field walkover is often needed to field check the desktop review and to look for additional wetland features. This detailed planning can help our NbS Team delineate wetlands in the most efficient way.
Next, the NbS Team establishes data points at the selected investigation sites. They dig soil pits, identify dominant vegetation, analyze soils, assess hydrology, and conduct a Floristic Quality Assessment (FQA). They identify whether sites have the three criteria necessary to be considered a jurisdictional wetland, which include wetland vegetation, hydric soils, and wetland hydrology. Although some of the identified wetlands may be excluded or exempted from regulation, our NbS Team first determines if a site possesses the three wetland criteria. Only the regulating authority can make the jurisdictional, exempted, and excluded determinations.
Field data is collected and entered on our field tablet and then downloaded into CAD and shared with others on our Civiltech team. For Phase I, this information is important for identifying potential impacts and avoidance alternatives. For Phase II, it is important for design, mitigation, and permitting. In Phase III, it is important for construction observation and post-construction monitoring. All these phases could include impacts and mitigation for wetlands, buffers, trees, and habitats. Once the fieldwork is complete and the data is collected, the NbS team prepares a series of technical reports and memos analyzing and presenting the data.
Tree Surveys
Tree preservation ordinances and bylaws are becoming increasingly common. To keep up with these demands, Civiltech has two ISA Certified Arborists on staff, including our Director of Nature-based Solutions, Barry Stuedemann, P.E., SPWS, and our Landscape Designer, Jeremy Taylor. As often required by local ordinances, our NbS Team conducts Tree Surveys in accordance with regulatory requirements. These surveys are also often required by state and federal regulations, and are often an important component of habitat surveys for T&E species as well. Tree surveys can be conducted year round, as many of the key characteristics being documented are beyond the leaves.
Maintenance & Monitoring
Another NbS service resuming at the beginning of the growing season is post-construction Maintenance and Monitoring (M&M), which includes assessing constructed features such as wetlands, buffers, streams, and best management practices. The NbS Team’s M&M work includes two to three monitoring events per growing season. Each event may include FQAs, in-stream structure assessments, maintenance planning, and coordination with landscape contractors. The FQA helps identify species that were planted or volunteer, native or non-native, and invasive or conservative. This list of species is then used to calculate a Floristic Quality Index (FQI) number, which is important for documenting performance standard status. After each growing season, the NbS Team compiles their data from these events in an M&M Annual Report for clients and regulators.