ECOSYSTEM RESTORATION
Marstel-Day staff have decades of experience in ecosystem restoration focused on restoring native biological diversity and natural disturbance regimes within terrestrial, wetland, stream, and coastal habitats. We partner with our clients to promote an ecosystem management approach for how to restore, enhance, and manage these systems to reach the desired ecological conditions and fully comply with federal and state regulatory permits and requirements. Our capabilities span the design and planning phases, permitting, and managing the on-the-ground habitat techniques and restoration build activities.
Our Team
Capabilities/Services
- Invasive Species Management
- Native Habitat Restoration and Management
- Pollinator Habitat Establishment
- Forest Management
- Conservation Landscape Design
- Stream and Wetlands Restoration
- Coastal Restoration
Related Projects
- Habitat Management for Landfill Maintenance, Naval Air Station Patuxent River (Maryland)
- Invasive Species Management and Native Plantings at Multiple Military Installations, NAVFAC Washington (Maryland, Virginia, and Washington, DC)
- Pollinator Habitat Establishment at Multiple Installations, NAVFAC Washington (Maryland and Virginia)
- Tidal Marsh Restoration and Phragmites Control, Naval Support Activity Annapolis (Maryland)
- Pine Hill Run Stream Restoration Design, CWA Permitting, and Construction, Naval Air Station Patuxent River (Maryland)
- Stream Restoration Design, CWA Permitting, and Construction, Naval Support Facility Indian Head (Maryland)
- Pine Woods Restoration, Naval Support Activity Annapolis (Maryland)
- Shoreline Stabilization Design, Naval Air Station Patuxent River (Maryland)
- Invasive Plant Survey, Management Plan, and Control, Shaw Air Force Base (South Carolina)
Our team is highly experienced in restoring terrestrial habitats to meet multiple ecological and operational objectives.
Marstel-Day has developed Habitat Models for Enhancing Restoration of Pollinator Habitat and has restored pollinator habitat on DOD installations
Solutions & Innovations
We actively support the conservation of pollinator species by conducting insect surveys, restoring fields through invasive plant control and targeted plantings to enhance pollinator habitat, and developing pollinator habitat conservation plans. Recently, we designed an innovative GIS model based on landscape- and site-level features to assess habitat suitability for insect pollinators and to ecologically optimize the selection of pollinator habitat restoration sites.
Our team is highly experienced in restoring terrestrial habitats to meet multiple ecological and operational objectives. For example at a closed landfill, we have managed early successional fields via invasive plant control, bush hog mows, prescribed burns, and targeted seedings to restore native warm season grasses, provide wildlife habitat for focal species, and support realistic military training conditions.
To arrest a severe stream headcut causing significant bank erosion and sedimentation loads, we leveraged the stream restoration budget, via cost-effective design and engineering measures, to double the linear feet for stream restoration and to repair the stormwater channel outflowing into the stream to improve high stormwater volume capacity.
For a 303(d) impaired stream within the Chesapeake Bay watershed, our team designed and restored 330 linear feet repair bank erosion, removed fish passage blockages, and created a vernal pool to support local amphibian populations. Stream restorative measures improved the impaired waters by restoring a self-sustaining, natural stream channel, capable of supporting native stream fauna and reducing excessive sedimentation loads.
To provide planning information for forest management, our team conducted forest inventories and developed Forest Management Plans for two military installations, including designing detailed forest stand prescriptions based upon ecosystem management goals and integrating climate adaptation and resiliency measures.