ESSA Technologies is an innovative Canadian company specializing in environmental consulting and decision support.

Our mission is to bring together people, science and analytical tools to sustain healthy ecosystems and human communities.

The key to our success is a unique and rich combination of scientific expertise, advanced tools for systems analysis, and innovative communications techniques. We provide ideas, tools, and disciplinary expertise; our dedicated and knowledgeable team of scientists fills a niche in the consulting field — we work together in interdisciplinary teams with our clients, applying quantitative methods and qualitative concepts to resolve complex natural resource and environmental management problems.

News

    1. June 2011
    2. ESSA is hiring!
    3. ESSA is looking for a Social Scientist to work out of its Vancouver or Ottawa offices. ESSA International is looking for an Environmental Scientist/Assessment Specialist to join its Ottawa office. Please check our careers page for more details.

    1. June 2011
    2. State-and-Transition Landscape Model Conference Announced.
    3. A conference to bring together users of our landscape modeling tools (VDDT, TELSA and Path) will be held from June 14-16, 2011 in Portland, Oregon. The conference will consist of an optional one day training session on the use of the new Path Landscape Model Framework, followed by two days of talks from scientists and managers from across North America sharing experiences with various applications of the landscape modeling tools. Topics will include land management, fuels planning, wildlife habitat, species at risk, ecological restoration, climate change and carbon management. There will also be a presentation and discussion regarding the future direction of our tools. Please check www.pathmodel.com/conference for a full conference announcement, including agenda and registration information.

    1. April 2011
    2. New RBT release.
    3. Version 3 of the River Bathymetry Toolkit is now available for download. The RBT now supports both ArcGIS 9 and ArcGIS 10 and includes additional and improved functionality for raster detrending and calculating river metrics.

    1. April 2011
    2. ESSA collaborates with USGS and SABCC to develop a decision support model for Buffelgrass management
    3. Buffelgrass (Pennisetum ciliare) poses a problem in the deserts of the United States, growing in dense stands and introducing a wildfire risk in an ecosystem not adapted to fire. Given the urgency of the buffelgrass invasion and the limited resources available, land managers need tools to evaluate the potential efficacy of alternative mitigation strategies. The USGS worked in cooperation with ESSA Technologies and SABCC to focus on the development of a spatially explicit model as a decision support system to evaluate potential strategies using buffelgrass infestations on the south slope of the Santa Catalina Mountains.

      For more information see http://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/2011/3022/.

    1. April 2011
    2. Our Vancouver office has moved to a new location!
    3. Effective March 28, 2011, the new address of ESSA Technologies Head office is: 600––2695 Granville St, Vancouver, BC, V6H 3H4.

    1. February 2011
    2. Path Version 3 is now available.
    3. Version 3.0.0 of the Path Landscape Model Framework is available for download at www.apexrms.com/path.

      This latest release is a major milestone in the development of Path and includes the following new features:
      -"Box-and-arrow" editor for transitions, allowing users to visually create and edit their state-and-transition models directly within Path. This new editor means that VDDT is no longer required to create and edit models.

      -Streamlined approach for initializing Path from existing VDDT models. Path now automatically imports VDDT definitions, deterministic and probabilistic transitions, initial conditions, area limits, TSD information and general run settings; as a result most existing VDDT models can be run immediately within Path.

      -Full menu system, making it easier for new users to familarize themselves with the software.

      -Online help system       that includes a reference guide and getting started tutorial.

    1. January 2011
    2. Welcome to Greg Radford, new Director of ESSA International!
    3. ESSA is pleased to welcome Greg Radford as the new Director of ESSA International. Greg comes to ESSA from the International Finance Corporation (IFC) of the World Bank in Washington DC, where he was the Director of the Environment, Social and Governance Department.

      Greg is results-driven with 20 years project and consulting experience in the fields of environmental planning and management including the management of multimillion-dollar global operations. He is experienced in many diverse sectors including global project experience in the extractive, infrastructure, manufacturing, natural resources and financial sectors. In addition to international project experience, Greg has extensive experience in natural resources management, regional land use planning, training and capacity building. Extensive stakeholder and outreach experience includes corporate engagement with clients, local communities and civil society. Greg is also an accomplished project team leader. He is recognized internationally for his expertise in the field of environmental and social impact assessment and management and the application of international standards to projects. This includes academic experience lecturing in the field of Environmental and Social Assessment.

      For more information, and to read about ESSA's global environmental and social sustainability consulting services, visit our new website at www.international.essa.com.

    1. December 2010
    2. Okanagan Water Viewer tool is released to the public.
    3. The Okanagan Water Viewer is a powerful, publically accessible web-enabled tool that empowers all concerned to find answers to major water availability questions and uncover their science foundation. The on-line Viewer provides a package of intuitive water visualization tools to illustrate current and future conditions (including climate change and population growth scenarios) of water use, availability, in-stream flow needs and water licensed for different purposes in the Okanagan. Embedded context help frequently provides links back to the core scientific studies used to generate the information displayed. This is a critical step in exposing the multi-million dollar datasets generated by the Okanagan Water Supply and Demand Project. Without the Okanagan Water Viewer, the science and data generated by the WSD Project are “locked” inside custom desktop models and voluminous paper reports that only a small handful of ‘insiders' can access and interpret.
    1. October 2010
    2. Don Robinson and Leonardo Frid present papers at the International Association for Wildland Fire (IAWF) 3rd Fire Behavior and Fuels Conference in Spokane, WA.
    3. Over 400 attendees from over 10 countries participated in presentations related to wildland fire management, behavior, ecology and more.  Over 15 wildland fire support and research related organizations attended the 3rd Fire Behavior and Fuels Conference in Spokane, WA to exhibit their products and services.
      Read the abstracts here:
      Bridging the scales and approaches of simulation models: the case for planning with FVS and VDDT (Don Robinson et al.)
      The Path Framework for simulating landscape level vegetation dynamics under alternative management scenarios (Leonardo Frid et al.)
    1. October 2010
    2. ESSA gains project to develop an Adaptive Management Plan for the Middle Rio Grande River in New Mexico.
    3. We recently obtained a contract to provide technical assistance with development of an Adaptive Management Plan (AM Plan) for the Middle Rio Grande (MRG) Endangered Species Collaborative Program (Program) in New Mexico.
    1. September 2010
    2. ESSA participates in 2010 Great Canadian Shoreline Cleanup.
    3. Every September, Canadians from across the country head to their local shorelines to make a positive impact in their community. For the past several years, ESSA staff has participated in the Great Canadian Shoreline Cleanup presented by Loblaw Companies Limited. This year, cigarette butts, food wrappers and plastic bags continued as the top three items collected from local shorelines, and together with other participants, we helped remove 98,071 kg of trash from a distance of 2,235 km.
    1. August 2010
    2. New VPEG website is launched.
    3. ESSA is a consortium member with SNC-Lavalin on the Vietnam Provincial Environmental Governance (VPEG) project. This project is currently building upon the results of the Vietnam-Canada Environment Project (VCEP) by advancing industrial pollution management (IPM) work undertaken in the six VCEP provinces along with three additional provinces, and by continuing its focus on building Vietnamese capacity to improve IPM. Learn more about VPEG and stay informed of its ongoing activities by visiting the project's new website at www.vpeg.vn/en/index.php.

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