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Environmental Modeling

Ecological Restoration and Planning for Sustainable Futures

While current regulations protect habitats and the species that rely on them, historic human impacts on habitat have resulted in functional degradation to our ecosystems, causing adverse impacts to biodiversity, water quality, water supply, flooding, and recreation. Lynker Intel works with clients to restore damaged habitats that provide important ecological functions, contributing to improved ecosystem health benefiting humans and wildlife alike.

Climate changes threaten the integrity of human and ecological systems around the globe—sea level rise is causing shorelines and coastlines to be more frequently inundated, and extreme weather events are pushing infrastructure meant to contain and control natural forces to their limits. Lynker Intel works with clients to address the threats of climate change with ecologically informed solutions. There are a multitude of federal, state, and local environmental regulations that can delay projects and require excessive and expensive mitigation. Instead of viewing these regulations as obstacles, Lynker Intel’s approach is to turn them into opportunities for a more sustainable project. We work with clients to develop multi-objective projects that integrate mitigation into the project, resulting in more efficient project delivery and projects that provide multiple benefits.

Our restoration team excels at executing an interdisciplinary approach. We seamlessly integrate environmental modeling, hydrology, ecology and engineering, combining an in-depth understanding of physical, chemical, and biological factors, their intersection, and their influence on each other in both natural and built systems. Lynker Intel combines this integrative practice with social and cultural elements to create project designs and implement ecological restoration measures that are successful from a functional, ecological, and societal standpoint in both the short and long term.

Restoration with past-focused, idealistic, and/or ad hoc goals may not work in the future because an ecosystem that is restored for the past environment is not likely to be sustainable in the changing environment of the future—simple recomposition of isolated and fragmented naturalistic patches is not likely to restore ecosystem functions, and unrealistic goals and work plans are not likely to gain public support. Lynker Intel advocates directing the principles and practice of ecological restoration to the future. Future—aimed restoration should acknowledge the changing and unpredictable environment of the future, assume the dynamic nature of ecological communities with multiple trajectories, and connect landscape elements for improving ecosystem functions and structures.

Relevant Case Study

Future Avoided Cost Explorer: Hazards

Pebble Mine

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Natural Hazards and Risk Assessment

Lynker Intel is a global provider of risk and safety solutions related to natural hazards, with a broad range of services across. Our scientists, engineers, and economists have decades of experience performing risk and damage assessments for the insurance market and planning communities at town, city, and national scales.

Ocean Storm Waves Crashing into Seawall in front of Houses

Hydrologic Modeling and Forecasting

Lynker Intel has expert hydrologists with strong expertise in field work, data analysis, research, modeling, forecasting, and developing actionable data products across all water environments. We work with a holistic approach to solve water-related issues by considering the combined effect of weather, climate, water and human management.

Planning and Designing for Resilient and Green Infrastructure

Infrastructure and its networks will be affected by the physical impacts of climate variability and change but will also play an essential role in building resilience to those impacts. Lynker Intel can help you prioritize, plan, and design new or retrofit old infrastructure in a more thoughtful environmentally aligned (green) manner that can account for the climate and other changes that may occur over its lifetime.

Geospatial Analytics

Business and government leaders face unprecedented risk from natural hazards, climate change, population growth, geopolitical shifts, and security threats. Lynker Intel can help you by building customized spatial intelligence to visualize risk on “smart” maps, find patterns and trends in big data, and communicate seamlessly during risk mitigation and response.

Climate Change and Population Growth

With decades of deep experience in natural hazards analyses and risk assessment, Lynker Intel partners with private and public organizations to operationalize climate change impact analytics, projections of population growth and subsequent increases in vulnerable assets, as well as other changes influencing hazard and risk exposure, in order to make better business and adaptation decisions for the future impacts of hazards. Decisions that must be made now.

Geohydrology and Groundwater Resource Sustainability

Hidden from view, groundwater provides a critical water supply resource to billions of people across the globe, while simultaneously providing a foundation to healthy ecosystems. Lynker Intel geohydrology professionals have the knowledge and experience to help clients manage their groundwater resource challenges.

Mine Water Management

Considering progressively more stringent regulations, high profile tailings dam disasters, declining ore grades and mine closure activities, sound water management strategies and models are paramount for successful and safe mining. Lynker Intel excels at assessing all phases and functions of mine water resources including the development of water-balance and groundwater flow-and-transport models to support the efficient management of water at a viable price. We understand that the availability, quality, and cost of water are key to investment decisions, and cost-effective water management is critical to profitability.

Site Assessment, Remediation, and Closure

Land, soil and groundwater impacted by accidental spills and releases of chemicals and wastes can present unacceptable risks to human health and the environment. Mitigation of exposure to impacts begins with a sound understanding of the sciences that define their 5 fate and transport. Lynker Intel approaches site assessments, feasibility studies, and remediation of impacted soil and groundwater considering the science and using the wide variety of means and methods in our toolbox.