West Virginia Division of Highways’ Roadmap to a Watershed Approach for Maximizing Ecological Lift through Compensatory Mitigation Activities

TRB’s second Strategic Highway Research Program (SHRP 2) has released a report that describes the result of a pilot test of the the Integrated Ecological Framework (IEF) as part of the planning process related to the Coalfields Expressway and King Coal Highway, two highways currently planned and under construction in southern West Virginia.

The IEF was developed in SHRP 2 Projects C06A (Integration of Conservation, Highway Planning, and Environmental Permitting Using an Outcome-Based Ecosystem Approach) and C06B (Integration of Conservation, Highway Planning, and Environmental Permitting Through Development of an Outcome-Based Ecosystem-Scale Approach and Corresponding Credit System). The IEF is available on the Transportation for Communities—Advancing Projects through Partnerships (TCAPP) website. TCAPP is now known as PlanWorks.

Other pilot tests were conducted in California, Colorado, and Oregon.