• Shoreline Protection at Jean Lafitte National Historic
  • Prime Hook National Wildlife Refuge Restoration
  • Marine Arctic Ecosystem Study

Coastal, Marine, and Great Lakes Ecosystems

Protecting our coastal ecology

Approximately 70% of the Earth's surface consists of water. Our oceans consist of 97% of all the water on Earth and 99% of the planet’s habitable space. Not including our inland waterways and Great Lakes, there’s an estimated 620,000 kilometres (372,000 miles) of coastline. Over one-third of the total human population, nearly 2.4 billion people, lives within 100 kilometres (62 miles) of the ocean.

Our coastal, marine, and freshwater scientists and engineers work globally on projects that range from research, assessment, and mitigation in our deep oceans to restoring important coastal and marine habitats. They develop sustainable and resilient solutions for the communities that depend upon our shorelines, oceans, reefs, and inland water resources.

Leveraging coastal and marine resources while maintaining the integrity of their ecology and long-term protection is a delicate balance. Stantec’s skill and experience in marine and coastal services includes research, permitting, assessment, monitoring, mitigation, cultural resources, and innovative technology. We leverage the skills of our internal staff nationally and globally, and we seamlessly work with our partners in academia, government agencies, and other companies to build solutions that deliver thoughtful, effective, and innovative results. We assess, we design, we protect, we restore.

A thorough understanding of international, federal, state/provincial, and local regulatory frameworks that guide the protection of coastal and marine systems—including cultural and archeological resources—results in solutions that are effective and realistic. This accelerates the approvals and the implementation process. We work closely and collaboratively with our regulatory agency project partners to develop compliant and appropriate approaches, which meet the expectations of our clients while maintaining the integrity of critical coastal and marine ecosystems.

Creating natural solutions

A thorough understanding of our coastal, marine, and freshwater ecosystems allows for innovative and sustainable solutions. Where possible, we strive to implement living shoreline solutions—a green infrastructure technique that incorporates native vegetation with other structural and organic materials. This is often more resilient than hard shoreline solutions and provides many benefits such as improvement to water quality, habitat creation, and physical protection for both aquatic and terrestrial species from waves and storms.
From coast to coast, we’re engineering projects that connect our planet
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International Design Firms Market – Water (ENR, 2019)
Design Firms by Sector – Water (ENR 2019)
Environmental Firms – (ENR 2019)

Services


Community Development We create communities by planning, developing, designing, and implementing the infrastructure needed to sustain their growth.
Environmental Services With 3,100 environmental staff in 20 specialties, we know what to do. When we’re gathering data to permit a new project or collaborating on a plan to remediate an old one, our passion for science drives us.
Geotechnical Engineering & Materials Testing Our geotechnical engineers and material specialists are focused on solving complex design, construction, and rehabilitation issues impacting the communities where we live and work.
Nature-based Solutions Using Nature-based Solutions such as carbon sequestration and greenhouse gas reduction, we can mitigate the ongoing effects of climate change.
Numerical Modeling Solutions Stantec’s Numerical Modeling Solutions teams create data-driven visualizations and evidence-based reports that can be used to make informed decisions for your project and community.
Remote Sensing With technology including unmanned aerial systems (UAS), photogrammetry, LiDAR, underwater acoustics, and satellite imagery, our Remote Sensing team helps you know more about your projects.

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