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<img src="images/habitat_01.jpg" align=left alt="Habitat Assessment, Management and Rehabilitation" border="0" vspace=5>
The field of environmental impact assessment was stimulated by the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) in 1969.  In recent years, three approaches to assessing ecological resources have been proposed.  These include the ecosystem approach, community inventory approach, and the habitat approach.  Aquatic Engineering's habitat assessment program provides the following services:
<ul>
	<li>baseline monitoring studies conducted prior to construction
	<li>evaluate ecosystem and inventory studies
	<li>identify alternatives that will minimize adverse impacts
	<li>identify potential environmental impacts in the early stages of project planning
	<li>macro and micro habitat analysis
	<li>monitoring of environmental and biological habitats
	<li>obtain an overall evaluation of a habitat
</ul>
<img src="images/habitat_02.jpg" align=right alt="" border="0">
Habitat assessments summarize the Macro/Micro features of an ecosystem; this can serve several purposes.  It is useful in categorizing localized habitats, for preliminary or baseline assessments of habitats, and for descriptive overviews associated with more detailed microhabitat analyses. Aquatic Engineering scientists include elements from all three ecological assessment approaches to determine potential impacts from large-scale construction and management project proposals.
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