Investigating habitat value to inform contaminant remediation options: Approach

Habitat valuation methods are most often developed and used to prioritize candidate lands for conservation. In this study the intent of habitat valuation was to inform was to inform the decision-making process for remediation of chemical contaminants on specific lands or surface water bodies. Methods were developed to summarize dimensions of habitat value for six representative aquatic and terrestrial contaminated sites at the East Tennessee Technology Park (ETTP) on the US Department of Energy Oak Ridge Reservation in Oak Ridge, TN, USA. Several general valuation metrics were developed for three broad categories; site use by groups of organisms, site rarity, and use value added from spatial context. Examples of use value metrics are [...]