Innovation and Creativity
Innovation and creativity are a cornerstone at Stone. While we are happy to perform our work as directed or with established and proven processes, we are also proactive when it comes to offering our clients ideas that have the potential for improving results or productivity. When you are starting with a problem that doesn’t already have a prescribed solution, Stone is your best choice for a project partner.
Examples of Stone’s innovation and creativity include:
- To help improve information about water pollution source areas and documentation concerning the effectiveness of agricultural conservation practices on Vermont farms, Stone scientists have designed, constructed, and instrumented over 15 edge-of-field runoff monitoring stations. This work is giving states, watershed protection organizations, and the agricultural community information that has never before been available. [Read more about Stone's work to design and build edge of field monitoring stations]
- Our innovative collaboration with one client has resulted in optimized environmental model runs in the cloud. This means any member of the client’s organization can use this web modeling tool to accomplish their needs in a timely and efficient manner. [Check out the presentation about this important work.]
- Stone is working with colleagues in the environmental modeling community to address the US EPA's conclusion that the currently available pesticide exposure modeling tools and proposed parameterization approaches are not adequate for representing pesticide exposure of endangered species in medium and high flow aquatic habitats. [Read more about Stone's work to develop a screening level flowing water exposure modeling approach for endangered species.]
- Our creative delivery of data and associated visual output in the form of Story Map Journals has enabled our clients to engage their constituents with informative and exploratory material. The outcome is larger support for moving a project forward. [Check out the Bennington Downtown Area-Wide Plan Map as an example of using maps to tell a story.]
- Stone has been a leader in High Resolution Site Characterization (HRSC) since before the phrase was commonly used. Since the 1990s, Stone recognized the need to develop dynamic site characterizations processes that could be iterative and efficient, rather than the industry’s common practice of investigating sites in a linear, sequential, and inefficient way. We have been leading the way ever since. [Visit our HRSC Page.]