Habitat Equivalency Analysis
- Recent Topic Edits
- Salish Sea References
- Ecology Shoreline Photography Viewer
- The Encyclopedia of Puget Sound provides a peer reviewed version of the wiki
- PRISM Project Search
- Washington Coastal Atlas
- UW River History Project
- Wiki Rules
- Wiki text does not reflect the policy or opinion of any agency or organization
- Please adhere to our social contract
- Complain here, and be nice.
Habitat Equivalency Analysis is one among a set of methods for quantifying injury and damages, developed during Natural Resource Damage Assessment processes defined under the federal Oil Pollution Act and Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act. HEA uses a Discounted Service Acre Year unit to compare between an area of injury caused by toxic contamination and an area of restoration, considering the relative use of each area by a set of target species and over a period of time. Service Acres are acres multiplied by an increment of habitat value. Discounting is applied based on economic theory that suggests that current service has greater value than service at some point in the future. Ultimately HEA is an estimation tool, used for negotiation of compensation. The use of HEA has expanded over time to quantify increments of habitat injury caused by development.
Notes
- Idanza & Wolotira 2001 provides some of the earliest use of HEA for quantifying injury at the Hylebos Waterway in Commencement Bay in the historical Puyallup Delta
- File:Ehinger et al 2015 nearshore habitat value HEA.pdf describes the use of HEA for quantifying shoreline modification in Puget Sound.