compensatory mitigation - the replacement of a natural resource such as a wetland that is often required by the enforcement of Section 404 of the Clean Water Act by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers or by State regulations enforced by other regulatory agencies. This usually involves the replacement of wetland functions such as water quality, habitat, and hydrologic functions and usually is also meant to replace an acreage equal to or greater than that which was lost or impacted.

shoreline stabilization - The use of structures and/or planting of vegetation, usually marsh vegetation, along an eroding shoreline in order to protect the shoreline from further erosion and remediate erosion that may have already occurred. Sometimes this results in the restoration of lost salt marsh habitat. For this database use of marsh grass planting for shoreline stabilization was considered marsh restoration.

habitat type - the type of wetland. This database includes several marsh and forested wetland types.

• bottomland hardwood

• swamp forest

• pocosin

• hardwood flat

• pine flat

• freshwater marsh

• shrub scrub wetland

• salt/brackish marsh

• Atlantic White Cedar

• non-riverine swamp

• submerged aquatic vegetation

wetland - for regulatory purposes, the definition generally used is the Army Corps of Engineers definition where a wetland is "an area inundated or saturated by surface or ground water at a frequency and duration sufficient to support, and that under normal circumstances does support, a prevalence of vegetation typically adapted for life in saturated soil conditions." "Jurisdictional wetlands" meet specific criteria outlined in the 1987 Field Guide for Wetland Delineation and have hydric soils, wetland hydrology and hydrophytic vegetation. Coastal wetlands, on the other hand, as regulated by the Coastal Area Management Act, while generally meeting these criteria, have a more specific definition.

success criteria - those conditions which must be met for a mitigation site to be considered successful in order to receive a permit to impact those wetlands. These criteria may include any combination of the following and often include all of the following: vegetation establishment, wildlife use and a hydrologic regime that is characteristic of the target wetland type.