Services
Independent Review
As a nonprofit, independent science and technology organization, APMI is well suited for conducting third-party independent reviews of complex and highly technical projects requiring multidisciplinary expertise. APMI’s corporate characteristics and our specialized team bring credibility to independent reviews. Our staff provides unbiased, science-based, and practical recommendations to address complex challenges. Additionally, we reach out to our network of associates and partners in academia, government, or industry to obtain the experts and the best possible advice to our clients. APMI utilizes the standards established by the National Academy of Sciences and Office of Management and Budget as well as other proven practices and standards (e.g., EPA).
Independent reviews cover a broad range of projects, including high-profile projects often involving billions of dollars of investment. While the more complex projects may require a formal, multidisciplinary panel of experts, other projects may entail a more focused review by an individual expert. APMI has established scalable processes and procedures to address specific program or project needs. Under a contract with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (through 2025), APMI conducts congressionally mandated Independent External Peer Reviews (IEPRs) of the Army Corps of Engineers' water resources projects. These reviews cover engineering, environmental, and economic aspects of the Corps’ projects addressing flood risk management, ecosystem restoration, and deep draft and in-land navigation systems. Our staff has extensive experience providing subject matter expertise to government agencies.
Sustainable Solutions
APMI is keenly aware of the importance of developing sustainable solutions that consider environmental, economic, and social conditions, both in the present and for the future generations. While challenging issues such as climate change, urbanization, and the rapid pace of technological advancement create opportunities, they also require serious consideration of best professional practices and standards. The U.S. government’s current focus involves modernizing infrastructure in water, energy, and transportation markets in order to not only address overall climate change but also to improve the aging infrastructure. As a member of the Institute for Sustainable Infrastructure and other professional organizations, APMI has adopted the Envision framework in developing solutions to major investments made in the infrastructure, including ecosystem restoration, flood risk management, and navigations systems. APMI’s projects consider sustainable solutions by evaluating engineering, economics, and environmental aspects as well as social impact and environmental justice considerations. Most importantly, these projects involve participation of stakeholders at many levels. Participants range from owners and design teams, community and environmental groups, and regulators and policymakers to ensure the final solution has stakeholders’ support, resulting the most sustainable outcome.
APMI is uniquely positioned to assist clients in developing sustainable solutions through our collaboration with a broad network of organizations and individuals from academia, other non-profit organizations, small business networks, and supporting agencies. Our network enables us to combine our scientific and engineering specialized expertise to develop innovative and effective sustainable solutions while bringing credibility to the process and public acceptance. APMI staff have the depth and breadth of expertise in an expansive range of engineering, economics, environmental, and human health disciplines and are able to analyze and address issues pertaining to environmental compliance, resiliency, human health and safety, extreme weather events, environmental justice, and climate change. APMI’s longstanding support to the Army Corps of Engineers ensures that engineering, environmental, and economic aspects as well as stakeholder participation are considered in developing new infrastructure or retrofitting existing ones.
Resilient Infrastructure
The U.S. economy relies on a vast network of infrastructure that includes transportation, water, energy, and communication provision. There is a general consensus among professional organizations that the U.S. infrastructure is dangerously overstretched and poses an unacceptable threat to human health and safety. The federal government has proposed sweeping plans to overhaul the Nation’s nation’s infrastructure to build, rehabilitate, and retrofit the aging infrastructure. The new infrastructure is expected to be modernized to a standard that is resilient to natural and man-made stressors, in particular those resulting from climate change. While there are similarities between sustainability and resiliency, APMI is keenly aware of the larger spatial scale and longer temporal scales of sustainability in comparison to resiliency.
Climate change and factors including the increase in intensity and duration of severe weather events drive the need for the consideration of resiliency in program and project planning. APMI addresses these concerns in support of water resources programs and projects in areas such as the analysis of alternatives and the development of conceptual designs. To address resiliency, programs and projects may include the use of non-structural measures to address increased coastal flooding from hurricanes and severe weather conditions; application of adaptive management principles; and efforts to maximize sustainability from environmental, social, and economic perspectives. APMI utilizes a variety of techniques to evaluate and manage potential risks on infrastructure. This includes the use of statistical techniques, point-estimate methods, or deterministic modeling using numerical or analytical techniques. Our risk management approach applies the concept of defense-in-depth, which provides multiple and successive levels of passive and active protection to increase resiliency. The APMI staff has successfully utilized non-linear dynamic systems to determine the impact of competing factors in assessing the overall adequacy of systems (e.g., water and energy use in producing biodiesel and cellulosic ethanol). APMI leverages its vast network of experts to complement our in-house capabilities enabling it to conduct analysis and evaluation of a broad range of engineering, environmental, and economic disciplines