Environmental Site Assessments
Environmental site assessments provide an informational framework through which we evaluate land development constraints and opportunities, management needs, and the potential integration of ecological and cultural components into site designs. Siglo Group offers this as a standalone service, but it is also often the first step in Conservation or Ecological Planning efforts, supporting landscape architects, planning efforts, and the long-term management of private or public lands through the thorough inventory of existing conditions. We assess ecological components, regulatory and development constraints, and future opportunities through site visits, GIS analysis, and literary research. By beginning a project with a baseline understanding of what is possible, clients are able to make informed decisions, potentially saving time, money, and effort in the planning process.
Requests for land evaluations come from private landowners, developers, land trusts, nonprofits, municipalities, law firms, planning firms, engineers, architects, and landscape architects. Environmental site assessments can outline regulatory and development constraints as well as provide an inventory of site characteristics.
Our Process
Siglo Group’s site assessments include slope analysis, a photographic inventory of photo points, aerial photography and surveying, infrastructure inventory, water quality buffer delineation, land use analysis, set-back buffers, critical environmental feature documentation, endangered species occurrences, plant community determinations, wildlife and bird surveys, soil analysis, and geologic analysis. Depending on the site and the client’s needs, we can also conduct visitor surveys and public outreach to help inform analysis and aid in the client’s future planning.
Our site assessments start with on the ground visits that catalog existing plant communities, invasive species, soil testing, erosion issues, tree inventories, and wildlife occurrences with location information georeferenced in the field. We augment this information with crowd-sourced data, GIS analysis, and other research. We have extensive experience in compiling these existing condition inventories, baseline documentation reports, and management guidelines into visually-compelling and narrative-driven site assessment reports. The resulting products describe site constraints and opportunities, ecological amenities, cultural resources, land management opportunities, and recommended best land management practices.
This information guides planning efforts associated with regional plans, land conservation, urban and rural development, ecological restoration, and park spaces. We facilitate the creation of a database to be used in the planning process that describes existing conditions through compelling and legible maps, graphics, data, narrative descriptions, and imagery. In addition, we provide attainable goals and guidelines based on existing conditions to heighten ecological health, protect valuable resources, increase biodiversity, and provide for a better user experience.
Example Projects
Butler Trail Natural Areas, Laguna Gloria Natural Areas, Waller Creek Competition, Ecological Master Plan, Zoning and Land Use, and Baseline Documentation, Oak Point, Shoal Creek, and Kingsbury Commons,. Zilker Natural Resource Inventory and Natural Area Management Guidelines