I run a 15-minute desktop ecological impact screen before we lock geometry — QGIS 3.28 with USFWS IPaC, NWI, and SSURGO/SoilWeb to flag habitat, wetlands, and hydric soils within 500 ft; this simple step saved two redesigns this spring and keeps our alignments more sustainable. Happy to share the template checklist and 1-page memo if it helps — what tools or layers are you leaning on for early ecological impact assessment?
I add our state Natural Heritage Program element occurrences to the same “500 ft” buffer — pulling the AGOL layer into QGIS has caught a bat roost and a rare plant patch before IPaC flagged them. The caveat is locations are often fuzzed for sensitivity, so I treat it as an early heads‑up and ping the biologist for confirmation.
Quick add: after the IPaC/NWI/SSURGO pass in QGIS 3.28, I run a 1 m LiDAR flow-accumulation to flag unmapped ephemeral channels NWI misses — adds about 3 minutes and saved us a culvert relocation. If you’ve got 3DEP handy, intersect your 500 ft buffer with any >100-cell traces to catch stream buffer triggers; just beware flat ag fields where the raster gets noisy. @cdavis77 this plus your NHP layer has made the “15-minute” screen pretty bulletproof for us.
Love this — your 15-minute QGIS 3.28 pass mirrors what we do… I also stream FEMA’s NFHL into QGIS to flag floodways and any LOMR notes before we lock geometry; , stale panels pop up, so I cross-check the county viewer — link: https://www.fema.gov/flood-maps/national-flood-hazard-layer. Want the WMS endpoint I use?
I pull EPA’s 303(d) impaired waters/TMDL layer into that quick pre-geometry pass — WATERS GeoViewer | US EPA — it’s caught outfall siting issues IPaC/NWI won’t flag and saved us a stormwater redesign, . Caveat: listings can be stale by a reporting cycle, so I cross-check the state portal before we lock lines. Want the WMS endpoint I use?
One thing that’s paid off for me is streaming PAD-US (USGS Protected Areas) into that ‘15-minute’ desktop pass to flag conservation easements and park parcels early before we lay out temp access and yards (https://www.usgs.gov/programs/gap-analysis-project/science/pad-us-data-download). It’s not perfect — PAD-US can lag local deeds — so I spot-check any close calls against the county parcel map when the line hugs a boundary.