Since the early 1990’s we have worked cooperatively with Wetland Studies and Solutions, Inc. (WSSI), Weanack Land, Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT), and others to develop effective wetland creation and restoration strategies for mitigation programs. This work has been collaborative with Rich Whittecar at Old Dominion University, and Jim Perry at the Virginia Institute of Marine Sciences. Our work has focused on Coastal Plain and Piedmont non-tidal forested wetland creation because of the extensive impact to those resources, although we also monitor a tidal freshwater wetland site at Weanack in Charles City County.

We have recently completed a large-scale wetland expansion and enhancement project at Huntley Meadows Park in Alexandria, VA. We collaborated with Rich Whittecar, Tess Thompson of the Virginia Tech Department of Biological Systems Engineering, WSSI, and the Fairfax County Park Authority to characterize and quantify the hydrology of the wetland and assess long-term changes in the vegetation communities in response to a new flooding regime. Much of the monitoring data that was collected at the site has served as a field test for Wetbud, our wetland water budget modeling software.