What is stream delineations?

Question

I was going through some environmental jobs that I could possibly apply for when one of the duties said stream delineations. Does anyone know what this means? Does it mean something with looking at soil and other characteristics to determine whether a specific area is a stream?

Answer 1

Pretty much.  Funny enough I am a wetland delineator.  Well thats not my title (Environmental scientist) but that is what I do.  Simply put I work for a consulting engineering firm in the Environmental Science division.  When someone wants to put a building in or to pave or construct a new road my company is approached to design said project.  Often times with that there are environmental regulations htat have to be followed.  So what my division does is it will write out these very lengthy permit applications that we then send to our state DEP (NJ) and they then issue us permits so we can build.  

Most of the permitting we do involves wetlands, so when we come to a project that may impact wetlands (which are very heavily regulated in NJ) we go out to the site and perform a wetland delineation.  This simply uses science (soil, vegetation and hydrology) to map out exactly where a wetland is located.  The state of NJ has specific criteria that make and area a wetland so we get certifications to be able to determine that criteria (vegetation, soils and hydrology).  We then use our delineation and see if the project is going to impact it in a way they regulations forbid.  We then go from there and fix the design if need be.

It sounds like what that job is describing is something very similar.  If it is linked to the state government like my job is then the type of science used would be dependent on that.  It sounds like you would be part of mapping out where streams are based on a given definition of what a stream is.  Hope this helps.  :)