Optimizing Work While Protecting the Environment

As industry expectations evolve, project teams are taking a more informed and adaptive approach that reflects both advances in science and a deeper understanding of environmental risk. A recently published international guidance document from PIANC, the World Association for Waterborne Transport Infrastructure, reflects this growing momentum.

PIANC’s publication, A Guide for a Risk-Based Approach to Environmental Windows for Dredging and Navigation Infrastructure Works (EnviCom Working Group Report 227 – 2026), promotes a framework that focuses less on restricting activities according to the calendar and more on understanding, monitoring, and managing actual environmental risks.

Anchor QEA Principal Engineer and Director of Practice Areas Rebecca Desrosiers chaired the international working group that developed the guidance.

“The premise of the publication was to establish a best practices guideline for applying risk management principles to some of the standard work we do,” says Desrosiers. “The goal is to better understand the environments where we work so we can optimize project outcomes while protecting natural resources that may be affected.”

This approach reflects a broader industry movement toward understanding how environmental impacts occur and using that insight to shape project decisions. Instead of relying solely on fixed timing restrictions, teams are increasingly focusing on the specific conditions, pathways, and receptors that determine risk. 

Traditionally, environmental windows have been established around periods of perceived environmental sensitivity. While straightforward to implement, these fixed restrictions do not always account for site-specific conditions or the actual pathways through which project activities affect environmental resources.

Building a Framework for Risk Management 

At the center of the guidance is an environmental risk management framework built around the source-pathway-receptor model. This approach examines how a project activity creates a potential stressor, how that stressor moves through the environment, and whether it ultimately reaches a sensitive environmental receptor.

By focusing on actual risk pathways rather than assumptions alone, project teams can better identify when impacts are likely, and when they can be effectively managed. 

The result is a shift from fixed environmental windows toward more adaptive approaches supported by monitoring, modeling, and clearly defined management thresholds. Rather than relying exclusively on dates on a calendar, project teams can use real-time information to adjust operations when conditions warrant.

Innovations that Advance Capabilities

Advances in dredging technology, monitoring systems, predictive modeling, and data analysis are making it increasingly possible in environmental management. These tools allow project teams to continue operations while actively tracking conditions and adjusting activities when predetermined thresholds are reached.

For Desrosiers, the real opportunity lies in how these tools inform decision-making.

“The combination of modern dredging methods, real-time monitoring, and predictive modeling can support highly adaptive, site-specific environmental windows,” she wrote. “But realizing that potential requires early collaboration between regulators, contractors, and consultants to define acceptable risk, agree on thresholds, and build transparent, defensible monitoring and response systems.”

“Dredging equipment and methods can take us a long way toward enabling this shift,” Desrosiers recently wrote in DFSI Magazine. “Where technology becomes truly enabling is in combination with monitoring and predictive tools.”

Adaptability in Practice

The Municipality of Skagway waterfront revitalization project in southeast Alaska demonstrates how a risk-based environmental window approach can support both environmental protection and project delivery. The work involved demolition of several overwater structures, installation of new docks and mooring dolphins, and construction of several other related terminal access infrastructure. The project included the removal of approximately 700 piles and the installation of about 285 piles using vibratory and impact hammer pile-driving methods. All of this was to be done in an area with seasonal marine mammal activity, tourism-related schedule constraints, and limited winter daylight for marine mammal monitoring. 

The Steller sea lion, killer whale, and harbor seal were most likely to be present as they feed on the annual eulachon run along the Lynn Canal. Based on the project constraints, the initial construction schedule was established to coincide with the end of the tourist season and to be completed before the start of the eulachon run. 

Rather than relying solely on fixed seasonal restrictions, the project team used real-time marine mammal monitoring data and adaptive management to guide construction activities. If a mammal was observed within an exclusion zone, work was stopped and if they were observed in a harassment zone, work continued but was monitored. This allowed work to proceed when environmental risk was low, providing a practical example of the adaptive framework in the PIANC guidance. 

Balancing Protection with Efficiency

As environmental challenges grow more complex, project owners, regulators, and stakeholders are looking for approaches that balance environmental protection with project certainty and operational efficiency. Approaches grounded in environmental risk understanding are becoming an important part of that conversation. 

“Ultimately, the question is not how far equipment can take us, but how far we are willing to operationalize the tools we already have,” said Rebecca to DFSI Magazine. “The combination of modern dredging methods, real-time monitoring, and predictive modeling can support highly adaptive, site-specific environmental windows. But realizing that potential requires early collaboration between regulators, contractors and consultants to define acceptable risk, agree on thresholds, and build transparent, defensible monitoring and response systems.”

This perspective aligns with how Anchor QEA approaches complex environmental projects: applying science, experience, and thoughtful problem-solving to navigate evolving expectations and deliver practical, informed solutions to a range of projects from remediation and revitalization to restoration and resilience.

Rebecca Desrosiers is Principal Engineer and Director of Practice Areas at Anchor QEA.

Get in touch with Rebecca to learn more.