2023 Early Hearing Detection & Intervention Conference

March 5-7, 2023 • Cincinnati, OH

6/05/2017 | 2:30 PM - 2:45 PM | LANDSCAPE ECOHYDROLOGIC PATTERNS IN AQUATIC RESOURCE COMPENSATORY MITIGATION | 301B

LANDSCAPE ECOHYDROLOGIC PATTERNS IN AQUATIC RESOURCE COMPENSATORY MITIGATION

Compensatory mitigation for unavoidable impacts permitted under Clean Water Act §404 has continued to gain prominence since the 2008 Mitigation Rule, and landscape patterns in the practice of mitigation merit empirical research. We investigated topographic, soils, and land use features of an extensive geospatial dataset of mitigation sites. On average, project footprints generally exhibited topography and soil properties conducive to wetlands, and potentially suitable land cover types composed a substantial percentage area of mitigation sites, whereas agricultural and developed cover classes were less prominent. In addition, data describing the likely contribution to overall habitat connectivity suggested that valuable “hub” and “corridor” classes were well represented. Ongoing uncertainty surrounds the functional performance of projects individually and collectively, but these findings offer an encouraging sign that mitigation has at least tended toward plausibly suitable locations. More conclusively, this research demonstrates the potential for consistent and reproducible geospatial analyses to inform the regulatory process by revealing and clarifying key landscape-scale considerations for proposed mitigation sites.

S16 Understanding and mitigating change in freshwater ecosystem services
S04 Natural and Constructed Wetlands – improving water quality and watershed health
C36 Water Resource Management

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Presenters/Authors

Dan Auerbach (), Office of Wetlands, Oceans and Watersheds, USEPA, Washington DC, auerbach.dan@gmail.com;