Gavin Archbald

Senior Consulting Ecologist, Practice Director - Restoration Ecology

Bio
Relevant Experience
Education & Credentials

Bio

Mr. Gavin Archbald is a senior restoration ecologist with more than 15 years of experience. He specializes in the management of restoration projects in wetland and riparian habitats. His restoration work encompasses tidal marsh, freshwater wetland, riparian, coastal scrub, marsh-upland ecotone, and oak woodland habitats in California. Mr. Archbald has contributed to all restoration project phases from planning and permitting, to design, construction, monitoring, and permit compliance reporting. He focuses on creating cost effective, feasible-to-implement restoration designs that provide multiple benefits. He is certified in the California Rapid Assessment Method (CRAM), is skilled at delineating wetland and riparian habitats, and has extensive experience mapping and monitoring a range of vegetation communities. Mr. Archbald has worked on dozens of projects serving clients in the public and private sectors.

Prior to joining Integral Consulting, he was a senior restoration ecologist at H. T. Harvey & Associates where he worked for 15 years.

Relevant Experience

Ecological Restoration

Regional Living Shorelines Design Project, Marin, San Francisco, and Alameda Counties, California — Leads ecological design to restore subtidal and intertidal habitats at 10 pilot restoration sites in San Francisco Bay for the Regionally Advancing Living Shorelines (RALS) project led by California State Coastal Conservancy.

Strategy to Advance Flood Protection, Ecosystems and Recreation Project (SAFER Bay), Santa Clara and San Mateo Counties, California — Led preparation of the restoration basis of design for the San Francisquito Creek Joint Powers Authority’s Strategy project, which will create 7 miles of flood management levees and restore/enhance 1000 acres of bayland habitat in South San Francisco Bay.

Bay Rise Park, Burlingame, California — Prepared basis of design for tidal salt marsh-upland ecosystem restoration component for the Sphere Institute’s 9-acre project. The restored wetland is designed as a nature-based sea level rise adaptation strategy.

De-Pave Park Master Plan and Design, Restoration Assistance, Alameda, California — Led ecological design for master plan and 30% design of living shoreline, tidal marsh habitat, and upland habitat restoration for a 15-acre public access ecological park designed to adapt to sea level rise at Alameda Point. Led Bay Restoration Regulatory Integration Team meetings and strategy. Evaluated on-site soil contaminants for wetland restoration design.

South San Francisco Bay Shoreline Project, Santa Clara County, California — Developed a salt marsh-upland ecotone basis of design report, then plans and specifications for 90-acres of transitional habitat on the Bay side of a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers flood control levee. Prepared a flood risk management levee revegetation plan in for 5 miles of earthen levee collaboration with the U. S. Army Corps of Engineers, U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and the California State Coastal Conservancy.

Bay Trail Connection at Ravenswood Open Space Preserve, East Palo Alto, California — Prepared a mitigation and monitoring plan, oversaw construction of salt marsh habitat mitigation, then led 5 years of habitat monitoring for the Midpeninsula Regional Open Space District’s Ravenswood Bay Trail Connection Project. The Ravenswood Bay Trail completed a 0.6 mile missing gap in the San Francisco Bay Trail on the San Francisco Peninsula.

BART Silicon Valley Santa Clara Extension, Beneficial Reuse, Santa Clara and San Mateo Counties, California — Assessed ecological contaminants in over 3,000,000 cubic yards of borrow sites and boring tunnel alignment for beneficial reuse for the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority’s (VTA) Beneficial Reuse of Excavated Material for Tidal Marsh Restoration Project. Project proposes to beneficially reuse ~3 million cubic yards of tunnel excavated soils to support future tidal marsh restoration in the South San Francisco Bay.

Bay Area Rapid Transit Blankstein Wetland and Riparian Mitigation Site Monitoring, Maintenance, and Reporting, Fremont, California — Oversaw riparian mitigation site construction. Leads long term monitoring, report preparation, and client communications. Manages subcontractors for a 10-acre riparian and wetland mitigation site for the Bay Area Rapid Transit District. The Blankstein site provides habitat mitigation for the loss of jurisdictional wetlands, other waters, and riparian habitat resulting from construction of a new section of Bay Area Rapid Transit train line in the Fremont area.

Don Edwards Wildlife Refuge Master Quality Assurance Project Plan Development, Fremont, California — As lead staff, wrote a Master Quality Assurance Project Plan to screen soil imported for contaminants for use in the Don Edwards National Wildlife Refuge. The plan includes two of the pond complex’s of the South Bay Salt Pond Restoration Project (SBSPRP). The SBSPRP restores a mix of tidal marsh and managed pond habitats in 15,100 acres of former salt ponds. H. T. Harvey, in collaboration with U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and SBSPRP, prepared and is implementing a Regional Water Quality Control Board/Bay Conservation and Development Commission-approved Master Quality Assurance Project Plan for import of clean fill for salt pond maintenance and ecotone/horizontal levee creation.

Pond A4 Resilient Habitat Restoration Project, Sunnyvale, California — Led development of project concepts, biological studies, and regulatory agency permit applications for Santa Clara Valley Water District’s (Valley Water) highly innovative project. The project provides multiple benefits by constructing shallow water shorebird foraging habitat in Pond A4 using sediment excavated from Valley Water’s Stream Maintenance Program.

High-Tide Refuge Island Design, Construction, and Monitoring, Alameda and San Mateo Counties, California — Led resource agency permit applications for construction of high tide refuge islands in San Francisco Bay to benefit the endangered salt marsh harvest mouse and California Ridgeway’s rail for the California State Coastal Conservancy. Designed, permitted and monitored construction of 69 similar refuge islands located in 15 tidal marshes across San Francisco Bay.

Alum Rock Park Bank Repair and Stream Restoration Project, San Jose, California — Managed five years of annual monitoring and report preparation with a hydrology subcontractor for riparian mitigation sites providing fish passage improvements at Alum Rock for the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Agency. Received agency sign-off.

Brisbane Guadalupe Channel Environmental and Permitting Support, Brisbane, California — Developed a mitigation and monitoring plan to integrate riparian habitat restoration with a flood control project in Guadalupe Channel for the City of Brisbane. Carried out a soils assessment and prepared project specifications for on-site soil handling.

Santa Clara Valley Water District On-Call Quality Assurance Officer Services, Santa Clara County, California — Serves as quality assurance officer to Valley Water to facilitate beneficial reuse of stream sediments dredged from Valley Water’s Stream Maintenance Program for reuse in the Don Edwards National Wildlife Refuge in Santa Clara County at Pond A8 and A4. This work involved contaminant screening analysis, communications with regulatory agency staff to obtain sediment reuse approval, and monitoring and reporting on sediment reuse transport and stockpiling.

Crissy Field Marsh Expansion Ecological Opportunities Assessment, Presidio of San Francisco, California — Developed a conceptual restoration plan in collaboration with a landscape architecture firm to expand Crissy Field Marsh to accommodate sea level rise.

Faber Marsh Habitat Enhancement Project, Palo Alto, California — Wrote the conceptual plan to restore salt marsh-upland ecotone, oversaw mitigation construction, and monitors restoration at Faber Marsh on the San Francisco Bay for the San Francisquito Creek Joint Powers Authority.

Saratoga Creek Hazard Tree Removal and Restoration Project, Saratoga, California — Managed long-term monitoring and reporting to regulatory agencies for all phases of the project along a 3,000-foot-long section of Saratoga Creek.

Sunnyvale Water Pollution and Control Plant Expansion Project, Sunnyvale, California — Managed riparian mitigation site establishment from concept through construction and 5 years of monitoring. Received agency sign-off.

Education & Credentials

Highlights

16 years of experience

Riparian and wetland ecology

Ecosystem restoration planning, revegetation construction, and long term monitoring

Regulatory permitting

Wetland delineations

Certified for CRAM in tidal marsh, depression wetlands, and riparian habitat

Vegetation mapping and remote sensing

Soil contaminant evaluations for wetland restoration

Education & Credentials

M.S., Biology, San Francisco State, San Francisco, California, 2011

B.S., Ecology, San Francisco State, San Francisco, California, 2008

B.A., Communications, University of California, San Diego, California, 1998

Professional Experience

Senior associate ecologist, H. T. Harvey & Associates, 2011–July 2026

GIS consultant, San Francisco Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve, 2010–2012

Instructor: GIS for Wetlands, Wetland Science Series, Romberg Tiburon Center for Environmental Studies, 2010–2012

Graduate fellow, South Bay salt pond restoration project, 2009-2010

Relevant Experience

Ecological Restoration

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