AMEC-BCI was selected to improve understanding of the fluvial geomorphology and riparian habitats of low and mid-order freshwater streams of peninsular Florida from Putnam to Highlands County. To date, AMEC-BCI has developed a new stream corridor classification system that facilitates the restoration or creation of natural streams that are properly fit to their watershed and valley conditions.
Geographic Information Systems
AMEC-BCI’s GIS Specialists provide extensive support for all of our areas of expertise and routinely develop data for numerous Water Resources related projects. Basic GIS support services include data collection, reprojection, and development and editing of various standard data layers such as roads, political boundaries, land use, soils, topography, hydrography and drainage basin delineations. Our GIS services also include inventory and environmental mapping for soils, wetlands and vegetation and statistical and volumetric analysis. 
AMEC-BCI was contracted to perform environmental mapping of Brazilian Pepper (Schinus terebinthifolius) along the FDOT-maintained right-of-ways along Interstate 75 and Interstate 275 in Manatee, Sarasota, Charlotte, Lee and Collier Counties, Florida in the Fall of 2006. The mapping was performed using Trimble GPS at 1:6000 (1"= 500') scale. The survey included all right-of-ways, the median, and all rest areas along the five-county corridor. The deliverables included printed maps, an ESRI ArcMap 9.1 project, and digital photographs linked to the GPS positions of Brazilian Pepper infestations.
AMEC-BCI was retained to provide professional engineering services in support of the City of Tampa’s waterway management projects. This special assessment program includes design of dredging projects at various locations throughout the City including but not limited to the Westshore area and Davis Islands. The projects are partially funded by the United State Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) thereby requiring a substantial environmental enhancement element.
AMEC-BCI was contracted to construct a GIS model to facilitate computing the costs involved in phosphate mine reclamation. The model was based on four GIS layers and associated cost estimates. The GIS layers needed for the model included a Mine Plan Reclamation Program, Post Reclamation Land Use, a Habitat Area Plan, and Mining Sequence Plan.
AMEC-BCI developed a comprehensive GIS-based relational database to optimize the operation and maintenance activities of water and wastewater utilities, stormwater facilities, outfalls, and structures. AMEC-BCI’s custom NPDES database currently supports operations and maintenance activities for over 3,000 facilities in 26 Florida counties.
Since May 2006, the AMEC-BCI GIS staff has been using ESRI ArcObjects, Microsoft Visual Basic, and C++ to automate repetitive GIS tasks associated with watershed modeling and watershed management planning. In some cases, tasks that consumed more than eight hours, such as connecting pollutant loading spreadsheets to GIS databases, have been reduced by over 1,000 percent! Other simple, repetitive tasks such as producing Adobe PDF files no longer require opening multiple ESRI map document files.
The Historical Lower St. Johns River Water and Sediment Quality Database, V-2, is a unique productspecifically designed to meet the needs of those who would like a simple method of accessing and analyzing extensive watershed data within a geographic context. The database was developed to help organize and make readily available water quality and sediment data collected by the St. Johns River Water Management District (SJRWMD) and other agencies.
GIS database support is a crucial element of a Stormwater Utility during both the initial database development effort and during long-term database maintenance. The City of Haines City in conjunction with Polk County and the Southwest Florida Water Management District (SWFWMD) had sufficient data resources available to establish the needed utility databases.