Developing and Applying a Geospatial Decision Support Tool for Efficient Identification of Wetlands Mitigation Sites

Efficient use of limited resources is a priority for all Departments of Transportation, particularly because of recent budget climates. One area of potential efficiency is improving the use of field time when completing environmental review and mitigation for transportation projects. Recently, the Michigan Tech Research Institute was charged with evaluating the potential of remote sensing and geospatial analysis technologies, including declassified Department of Defense resources, to help solve pressing transportation agency issues for the Michigan Department of Transportation (MDOT), as part of the Transportation Applications of Restricted Use Technology (TARUT) Study. During a focus group and technology evaluation process, MDOT technical and managerial staff identified that improving the efficiency and accuracy of selecting suitable wetland mitigation sites for transportation projects was a high priority. In traditional processes, identifying suitable wetlands mitigation sites is a lengthy process that has resulted in mapping of only a limited set of potential sites, uses few electronic geospatial data sets, and requires significant field time. Through an intensive requirements definition process, MTRI determined the key MDOT priorities that needed to be captured in a geospatially-based wetlands mitigation site suitability tool (WMSST). This paper reports on the background to the tool development, its functionality, the input geospatial data layers for suitability evaluation, and how it meets MDOT priorities for making the wetlands mitigation site selection process more time efficient.