AquaTerra Environmental offers design, management, and implementation (construction, monitoring and planting) services for habitat enhancement, compensation, restoration and reclamation projects (inclusive of planting teams, native plants, soil/fertilizer and machinery [i.e., excavators], as required). These types of projects are often a component of funded habitat improvement projects, municipal reclamation projects, and species-at-risk habitat restoration projects. Moreover, Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) may periodically request fish habitat compensation to offset unavoidable impacts incurred as a result of a project.

AquaTerra works with municipal and regional governments as well as First Nations, non-profit organizations and developers and has been involved in numerous habitat improvement projects garnering international attention including:

• Urban lake enhancement strategy;
• Fish passage improvements to watercourses in Burnaby, Mission, Surrey and Abbotsford;
• Planting prescriptions / plans and implementation to improve wastewater discharge quality;
• Planting prescriptions / plans and implementation to prevent on-going slope instability and erosional issues;
• Large-scale reclamation strategy and implementation within a non-dyked portion of the Alouette River with a focus on species-at-risk;
• Design and implementation of estuarine embayments to improve habitat function;
• Pacific Water Shrew habitat reclamation prescriptions and implementation at watercourses where shrews have been identified; and
• Planting prescriptions and implementation for development projects to offset impacts and to meet development permit conditions.

We provide the following services relating to habitat enhancement, compensation, reclamation and restoration:

• Development of site-specific native riparian planting plans
• Habitat restoration, enhancement and reclamation design focused on species-at-risk/species of management concern
• Fish passage enhancement
• Construction of spawning, rearing and over-wintering habitat
• Off-channel habitat design
• Off-site compensation strategies
• Engineered wetland design input
• Water quality, detention pond and settling pond design input
• Watercourse relocation and enhancement
• Watercourse complexing
• Estuarine / marine habitat enhancement.