Industry | Environmental Consulting |
---|---|
Predecessor |
|
Founded | Baltimore, Maryland (1982 ) |
Founder | Keith Bowers |
Headquarters | Baltimore, Maryland, U.S. |
Number of employees | 75 |
Website | biohabitats |
Biohabitats, Inc. is an American company that provides conservation planning, ecological restoration and regenerative design services. [1] [2]
Biohabitats employs about 75 people with expertise in biological sciences, earth sciences, water engineering, land planning, and design. The company's headquarters is in Baltimore, Maryland.
Biohabitats was founded in 1982 by landscape architect and restorationist [3] Keith Bowers, who remains its president in 2016.
Biohabitats’ planning work has included the preparation of climate adaptation strategies for the Galveston Island State Park master plan. [4] Its wetland restorations have included Nine Mile Run [5] [6] in Pittsburgh's Frick Park and the restoration of natural water flow to Barataria Preserve in Louisiana's Jean Lafitte National Historical Park and Preserve.
In the early 2000s, Biohabitats expanded its services to include more stormwater design and work in urban areas. The company worked with the New York City Department of Environmental Protection to prioritize vacant lands and modernize practices for stormwater management. At Freshkills Park, also in New York City, Biohabitats restored coastal wetland habitat on a former landfill. [7]
In 2005, Biohabitats moved its offices into a converted horse barn in the Woodberry neighborhood of Baltimore City. [8]
Biohabitats acquired Natural Systems International in 2010, and subsequently expanded its services to include the design of decentralized natural wastewater treatment systems, including Sidwell Friends School in Washington DC, and the Omnilife Stadium in Guadalajara, Mexico. [9]
In the 2010s, the company worked with Underwood & Associates to develop Regenerative Stormwater Conveyance. [10] Biohabitats designed a floating wetland for the Waterfront Partnership in Baltimore’s Inner Harbor floating wetlands that was constructed from floating debris found in surrounding urban waterways. [11] [12] Biohabitats also created a natural water treatment system based on algae in the harbor. [13]
In 2016 Biohabitats managed the restoration of Larder's Point Park on the Delaware river [14] and Washington Avenue Green in Philadelphia. [15]
In 2016, Biohabitats received a Top Ten Projects award from the American Institute of Architects. [16] Then in 2015 Engineering & Science Award of Excellence from the Pittsburgh American Institute of Architects, [17] the 2015 Society for College and University Planning award, [18] and again in 2016 the Louisiana Chapter President's Award of Excellence and the 2016 ASLA Analysis and Planning Honor Award as part of the planning team for the Baton Rouge Lakes Master Plan. [19]
Charles Morris Anderson is a landscape architect and fellow of the American Society of Landscape Architects, He is a Principal of the Phoenix-based landscape architecture firm, Charles Anderson Landscape Architecture, which is the continuation of his practice of the Seattle-based firm Charles Anderson Landscape Architecture.
A constructed wetland is an artificial wetland to treat sewage, greywater, stormwater runoff or industrial wastewater. It may also be designed for land reclamation after mining, or as a mitigation step for natural areas lost to land development. Constructed wetlands are engineered systems that use the natural functions of vegetation, soil, and organisms to provide secondary treatment to wastewater. The design of the constructed wetland has to be adjusted according to the type of wastewater to be treated. Constructed wetlands have been used in both centralized and decentralized wastewater systems. Primary treatment is recommended when there is a large amount of suspended solids or soluble organic matter.
Ecological engineering uses ecology and engineering to predict, design, construct or restore, and manage ecosystems that integrate "human society with its natural environment for the benefit of both".
Bioswales are channels designed to concentrate and convey stormwater runoff while removing debris and pollution. Bioswales can also be beneficial in recharging groundwater.
Michael Robert Van Valkenburgh is an American landscape architect and educator. He has worked on a wide variety of projects in the United States, Canada, Korea, and France, including public parks, college campuses, sculpture gardens, city courtyards, corporate landscapes, private gardens, and urban master plans.
Daylighting can be defined as "opening up buried watercourses and restoring them to more natural conditions". An alternative definition refers to "the practice of removing streams from buried conditions and exposing them to the Earth's surface in order to directly or indirectly enhance the ecological, economic and/or socio-cultural well-being of a region and its inhabitants". The term is used to refer to the restoration of an originally open-air watercourse, which had at some point been diverted below ground, back into an above-ground channel. Typically, the rationale behind returning the riparian environment of a stream, wash, or river to a more natural state is to reduce runoff, create habitat for species in need of it, or improve an area's aesthetics. In the UK, the practice is also known as deculverting.
Green infrastructure or blue-green infrastructure refers to a network that provides the “ingredients” for solving urban and climatic challenges by building with nature. The main components of this approach include stormwater management, climate adaptation, the reduction of heat stress, increasing biodiversity, food production, better air quality, sustainable energy production, clean water, and healthy soils, as well as more anthropocentric functions, such as increased quality of life through recreation and the provision of shade and shelter in and around towns and cities. Green infrastructure also serves to provide an ecological framework for social, economic, and environmental health of the surroundings. More recently scholars and activists have also called for green infrastructure that promotes social inclusion and equality rather than reinforcing pre-existing structures of unequal access to nature-based services.
Wetland conservation is aimed at protecting and preserving areas where water exists at or near the Earth's surface, such as swamps, marshes and bogs. Wetlands cover at least six percent of the Earth and have become a focal issue for conservation due to the ecosystem services they provide. More than three billion people, around half the world's population, obtain their basic water needs from inland freshwater wetlands. The same number of people rely on rice as their staple food, a crop grown largely in natural and artificial wetlands. In some parts of the world, such as the Kilombero wetland in Tanzania, almost the entire local population relies on wetland cultivation for their livelihoods.
Pope Branch is a tributary stream of the Anacostia River in Washington, DC. The headwaters of the stream originate near Fort Davis Drive, and the branch flows roughly northwest for about 1 mile (1.6 km) to the Anacostia, which drains to the Potomac River and the Chesapeake Bay. The watershed area of Pope Branch is about 0.4 square miles (1.0 km2).
Herbert Dreiseitl is a sculptor, artist, landscape architect and interdisciplinary urban planner. He founded the firm Atelier Dreiseitl in 1980 with a vision to develop liveable cities inspired by a deep understanding of water. In 2013, the studio was acquired by the Danish-based international consultancy group and continued under the name Ramboll Studio Dreiseitl. As of 2023, Dreiseitl's office is located in Überlingen, Germany, still a local affiliate of Ramboll. He has taught courses at the National University of Singapore and at Harvard University.
Kongjian Yu, is a landscape architect and urbanist, writer and educator, commonly credited with the invention of Sponge City concept, and winner of the International Federation of Landscape Architects’ Sir Geoffrey Jellicoe Award in 2020. Received his Doctor of Design Degree from Harvard Graduate School of Design in 1995, Doctor Honoris Causa from Sapienza University of Rome in 2017 and Honorary Doctorate from Norwegian University of Life Sciences in 2019, Yu was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2016.
Matthew Louis Urbanski is an American landscape architect. He has planned and designed landscapes in the United States, Canada, and France, including waterfronts, parks, college campuses, sculpture gardens, and private gardens. Collaborating with Michael Van Valkenburgh, he was a lead designer of many projects in the Northeastern United States, including Brooklyn Bridge Park, Alumnae Valley at Wellesley College, Allegheny Riverfront Park, and Teardrop Park. In addition to his work as a designer, Urbanski is a co-owner of a native plants nursery in New Jersey.
Water-sensitive urban design (WSUD) is a land planning and engineering design approach which integrates the urban water cycle, including stormwater, groundwater, and wastewater management and water supply, into urban design to minimise environmental degradation and improve aesthetic and recreational appeal. WSUD is a term used in the Middle East and Australia and is similar to low-impact development (LID), a term used in the United States; and Sustainable Drainage System (SuDS), a term used in the United Kingdom.
William B. Callaway, FASLA was an American landscape architect with SWA Group, recognized for his ability to design landscapes that are timeless. Peter Walker, designer of the World Trade Center Memorial and a long-time colleague, described Callaway as being "among the icons of post-World War II practice", developing his modern style by consistently staying true to the natural character of the landscape.
Anne Whiston Spirn is an American landscape architect, photographer and author. Her work promotes community-oriented spaces that are functional, sustainable, meaningful, and artful. Spirn is Cecil and Ida Green Distinguished Professor of Landscape Architecture and Planning in the Department of Urban Studies and Planning of the MIT School of Architecture and Planning. She is the 2001 winner of the International Cosmos Prize.
W Architecture & Landscape Architecture is an international architecture and landscape architecture firm based in Brooklyn, New York City. Founded in 1999 by Barbara E. Wilks, the firm is primarily known for its design of major waterfront reclamation projects and collaborative repurposing of public spaces. W Architecture has received substantial coverage in the media for the Edge Park in Williamsburg, Brooklyn; a redesign of the West Harlem waterfront; restoration of St. Patrick's Island in Calgary; and the recent Plaza 33 Madison Square Garden adjacency.
Dale Hodges Park is a 40.5 hectares natural environment urban park, stormwater treatment, and public artwork installation in northwest Calgary, Alberta. It is an expansion of Bowmont Park, where stormwater from eight northwest upstream residential communities flows slowly through "water structures and landforms" inspired by "natural river morphology as well as hydrologic and sedimentation processes" that serve as filters. The park, which is connected to the regional pathway, has a boardwalk, cycling and walking trails, the Nautilus Pond, a polishing marsh, a wet meadow, man-made streams, vantage points of the Bow River, and wildlife habitat.
A sponge city is a new urban construction model for flood management, strengthening ecological infrastructure and drainage systems, proposed by Chinese researchers in early 2000 and accepted by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the State Council as urbanism policy in 2014. It can alleviate urban flooding, water resources shortage, and the urban heat island effect and improve the ecological environment and biodiversity by absorbing and capturing rain water and utilizing it to reduce floods. Rain water harvested can be repurposed for irrigation and for home use. It is a form of a sustainable drainage system on an urban scale and beyond. Sponge city policies are a set of nature based solutions that use natural landscapes to catch, store and clean water; the concept has been inspired by ancient wisdom of adaptation to climate challenges, particularly in the monsoon world.
Nelson Byrd Woltz Landscape Architects (NBW) is an American landscape architecture firm based in New York, Charlottesville, and Houston, founded in 1985 by Warren T. Byrd, Jr., and Susan Nelson, and led by Thomas Woltz.
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