ISSUE: Habitat Equivalency Analysis (HEA) is a means to determine the amount of compensatory restoration required to provide services that are equivalent to the interim loss of natural resource services following an injury. HEA includes a discounting procedure to account for asset valuation in that the total asset value is equal to the present discounted value of the future stream of all services from the natural resource or the compensatory resource. Discounting is used to include the loss and gain of ecological services of the resources over time.

PROJECT AND FINDINGS: Visual_HEA is a computer program developed to calculate the amount of compensatory resource services that would be required to match those lost following an injury to natural resources. The program accepts input of parameters necessary to determine long-term service loss from the injury and long-term service gain from the desired compensatory restoration action. HEA results are highly dependent upon assumptions, and consequently it is useful to examine sensitivity of results to a range of parameter values. Visual_HEA offers an intuitive graphical interface that allows the user to input or modify input parameters and hence quickly create or alter the lost and gain service level shape functions. The ability to calculate results of many scenarios allows ready comparisons that may assist in determination of the most appropriate compensatory action.

Visual_HEA is being made available free of charge to interested researchers affiliated with scientific institutions. More information can be found at: http://www.nova.edu/ocean/visual_hea/.