New Approaches to Ecological Surveys (2009)

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Highway administrators, engineers, and researchers often face problems for which information already exists, either in documented form or as undocumented experience and practice. This information may be fragmented, scattered, and unevaluated. As a consequence, full knowledge of what has been learned about a problem may not be brought to bear on its solution. Costly research findings may go unused, valuable experience may be overlooked, and due consider- ation may not be given to recommended practices for solving or alleviating the problem. There is information on nearly every subject of concern to highway administrators and engineers. Much of it derives from research or from the work of practitioners faced with problems in their day-to-day work. To provide a systematic means for assembling and evaluating such useful information and to make it available to the entire highway commu- nity, the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials—through the mechanism of the National Cooperative Highway Research Program—authorized the Transportation Research Board to undertake a continuing study. This study, NCHRP Proj- ect 20-5, “Synthesis of Information Related to Highway Problems,” searches out and syn- thesizes useful knowledge from all available sources and prepares concise, documented reports on specific topics. Reports from this endeavor constitute an NCHRP report series, Synthesis of Highway Practice. This synthesis series reports on current knowledge and practice, in a compact format, without the detailed directions usually found in handbooks or design manuals. Each report in the series provides a compendium of the best knowledge available on those measures found to be the most successful in resolving specific problems. During all phases of the transportation planning, development, and operations process envi- ronmental data are needed to prepare environmental documents, obtain permits, design and construct road improvements, mitigate or avoid impacts, monitor mitigation, and conduct maintenance activities. The objectives of this synthesis were to survey transportation and nat- ural resource professionals familiar with transportation systems to identify ecological survey needs related to transportation activities and to identify technologies, techniques, and innova- tive methods to fulfill those needs. These technologies, techniques, and methods, collectively called new approaches, include data collection, its analysis and delivery, how it can be used in planning and operations, and cooperative working relations. The audience for this synthesis includes transportation professionals responsible for planning, designing, constructing, oper- ating, and maintaining transportation projects and the road corridor in an environmentally and fiscally responsible manner, as well as professionals in natural resource agencies and other organizations who work with departments of transportation (DOTs) on these issues. The synthesis is based on an electronic survey conducted in early 2008 that was sent to all state departments of transportation and state fish and wildlife agencies, and concurrent literature and new initiatives searches. There were 103 respondents representing 49 states, 46 state DOTs (92% of all state DOTs), 37 state fish and wildlife agencies (74% of all states), 3 state Natural Heritage Programs, the U.S. Forest Service, and the Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies. The major themes of this synthesis, as developed from those responses and concurrent literature and new initiatives searches, are: 1. Transportation planners and their colleagues are moving beyond the traditional frame- work in the consideration of ecological resources. The 2005 Transportation Act (SAFTEA-LU) encourages and expects this. Long-range transportation planning will consider ecological resources to a greater degree than past actions. 2. The innovations that assist with the developing broad scale approach to transportation planning involve new ways of thinking; a paradigm is developing that encompasses broad biological and landscape scales of viewing the natural world and longer time frames to detect potential impacts and to create solutions. FOREWORD PREFACE By Gail Staba Senior Program Officer Transportation Research Board

3. These large spatial scale and long-time frame plans and potential solutions require increas- ingly higher resolution data. These data need to be increasingly in similar formats and easily accessible. In summary, the future holds many promising new ways of gathering data, bringing them into common geographic information system formats, and improving working relations among agencies. The expanded scope of how far away from the roadway and how early in the planning process environmental concerns are considered is evidence of a new paradigm change for transportation agencies. This change began happening in the past decade as state and federal transportation departments became more responsible for the world outside of the road right-of-way. Patricia Cramer, Research Assistant Professor, Department of Wildland Resources at Utah State University, Logan, Utah, collected and synthesized the information and wrote the report. The members of the topic panel are acknowledged on the preceding page. This synthesis is an immediately useful document that records the practices that were acceptable within the limitations of the knowledge available at the time of its preparation. As progress in research and practice continues, new knowledge will be added to that now at hand.

CONTENTS 1 SUMMARY 12 CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION Background, 12 Objective, Scope, and Audience of Synthesis, 13 Organization of Report, 13 15 CHAPTER TWO RESULTS OF SURVEY: NEEDS AND NEW APPROACHES Methods, 15 Results—Respondents, 16 Results—Needs and New Approaches, 17 47 CHAPTER THREE CASE STUDIES Case Study 1. Florida’s Data Development Partnerships, 47 Case Study 2. Vermont Wildlife Linkages and Maryland’s GreenPrint Program: Two Alternatives to Looking at Important Landscape Linkages, 49 Case Study 3. National Level Efforts to Standardize Geographic Information System Data Dealing with Natural Resources, 49 Case Study 4. Regional Effort by Governors to Identify Wildlife Corridors and to Standardize Data Collection, 50 Case Study 5. Use of Global Positioning System Devices, 50 Case Study 6. Expanding Scale of Ecological Considerations for Transportation Projects, 51 Case Study 7. Assessment of Performance Measures, 52 Case Study 8. New York Invasive Species Control in Adirondack Park, Use of Technology for Rapid Response, 52 54 CHAPTER FOUR CONCLUSIONS 55 REFERENCES: LITERATURE AND WEBSITE REVIEW 64 GLOSSARY 66 APPENDIX A SURVEY INSTRUMENT 67 APPENDIX B IDEAS FOR CHANGE

ACkNOWLEDGMENTS Many people helped make this report successful. The author thanks panel members and outside advisors who participated with The National Academies to help form and guide the development of this report, as well as the participants to the survey. Thank you to the panel and advisors for their guidance: Rob Ament, Donna Buscemi, Steve Earsom, Harold Hunt, Mark Kross, Debra Nelson, Ron Regan, Vicki Sharpe, Bruce Stein, Paul Wagner, and Joseph Burns. A special thank you goes to Thomas Cramer for his editing of this report. The author also recognizes the important work of those in transportation agencies and natural resource agencies and organiza- tions. Credit is given to survey respondents in these organizations for their input into this work. They include the following: Peter Aarrestad, Jason Alcott, Mark Alexander, Michelle Allen, Norse Angus, Matthew Bailey, Henry Barbaro, Clayton Barnwell, Wayne Barstad, Lori Bellis, Gary Birch, Richard Bostwick, Kathy Boydston, William Branch, Frannie Brindle, Thomas Brooks, Cameron Bump, Marion Carey, Greg Chasko, Karen H. Clary, Doug Delaney, Bridget Donaldson, Steve Dyke, Lori Erb, Mark Easley, Gregg Erickson, Miguel Estrada, Gary C. Fawver, John Fleming, Mark Gaydos, Cathy Good- men, Lori Gibson, Dave Graves, Blythe Green, III, Jan Grenfel, Forrest Hammond, Mike Hardin, Thomas Hart, Tim Hill, Daryl Howell, Harold Hunt, Kevin Hunting, Roy Jacobson, Sandy Jacobson, Becky Jenkins, Kim Just, Amy Kahn, Helen Kitchell, Lorin Krueger, Nelson W. Lafon, Margaret Lawrence, Alan Leary, Geoff Levin, Christine Maguire, Tom Mann, Michael Marchand, Scott Marler, Tammy Massie, Peter McGilvray, Kevin Mixon, Rand Morgan, Priya Nanjappa, Debra Nel- son, Barry Nichols, Holly Niederriter, Siobhan Nordhaugen, Chasa O’Brien, Tomas O’Shea, Christine Perron, Robert Perry, Linnea Petercheff, Jeff Peterson, Jim Peterson, William “Buck” Ray, Douglas Reeves, Carol Lee Roalkvam, Ruth Roaza, Bill Rudd, David Rydene, Scott Sanders, Paula Scelsi, Rick Schneider, David Schuen, Joanne Schuett-Hames, Ray Schweinsburg, Gregg Servheen, Tony Shaddix, Vicki Sharpe, Mary Ann Showers, Bryan Simmons, Chris Slesar, Michael S. Smith, T.O. Smith, Dale Steele, Bonnie Steg, Rebecka Stromness, Steve Timpano, Rob Todd, Craig Uyeda, Mark Watson, Julianne Whi- taker Hoagland, Logan Williams, Travis Wilson, Richard Wolinski, Ricky Woody, Darell Young, and Eric Zach.