What is Wetland Delineation?
Dewberry site/civil engineering intern Benjamin Goldberg explains wetland delineation in under 90 seconds.
Transcript:
"Hi, my name is Benjamin Goldberg and I'm here to talk about wetland delineation. Now, in order to know how to delineate wetlands we're going to need to understand what exactly a wetland is. A wetland is an area that meets one of the following three conditions:
1: It has anaerobic vegetation. That means vegetation that can survive or reproduce completely or partially submerged underwater.
2: The hydraulic conditions on the site are going to have a drainage pattern which reflects the fact that this soil is either partially or completely, permanently or periodically submerged underwater
3: The top foot of soil is going to contain poorly drained hydric soil types, which is that black stuff up at the top here.
Now, how do we here at Dewberry delineate? Well, we either look at USDA soil surveys, take our own soil samples, or look for still water which is going to clearly denote the edges of the wetland. Now, why is it important for us as architects and engineers to understand wetland delineation? Well, it's so that we here at Dewberry and all architecture and engineering companies, in fact, can abide by government regulations to avoid environmental catastrophes in order to keep everyone, from us here at Dewberry, environmental groups, and those poorly drained hydric soil types, happy."