Work / Past performance
NEPA AI
Built by Heimdall Research in conjunction with Radial Spatial.
- Integration partner
- Blue Raster
- Period
- 2025 to 2026
- Geography
- Colorado
- Status
- Completed
Overview
NEPA AI is a mapping and analysis service for environmental reviews under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). For a project area drawn on a map, it returns mitigation cost estimates and report-ready text, with the source named for every figure. It runs inside ArcGIS, so analysts can use it in the tools they already work in.
The need
People who write NEPA documents put together mitigation costs and the supporting text by hand, from map results, program documents and earlier environmental impact statements. The aim was to do that step inside the GIS tools analysts already use, with every figure traceable to a source.
What we built
- A secured service that takes a project area and returns cost estimates for the project.
- Checks of the project area against federal wetland, flood zone and protected-species map data.
- Cost figures based on public mitigation program rates (including in-lieu-fee programs, where a payment goes into a program that restores wetlands or streams on your behalf) and prior environmental impact statements, each with its source.
- Regional pricing that reflects local mitigation markets.
- Report-ready text for each estimate. It is written after the numbers are fixed and cites only the system's sources.
- Batch runs, for many projects at once.
- Example integrations for ArcGIS Pro and ArcGIS Online, with example code for Blue Raster's developers.
- Secured access to the service.
- A separate demonstration web map, built by Heimdall Research on its own initiative, so the service could be tried outside ArcGIS.
Human review
The service supported the preparer. Cost and NEPA decisions stayed with agency and consultant staff.
Outcome
A working service with ArcGIS Pro and ArcGIS Online examples, used for development and demonstration.
Questions about this work: [email protected]