Tarick Abu-Aly is a principal civil engineer and hydrologist who leads Balance’s Bay Area restoration design practice. He believes that thoughtful planning and environmentally conscious design can restore health, function, and resilience to impaired ecosystems while simultaneously enhancing public health and safety. Tarick is a civil engineer by training, with a diverse background in geomorphology, river hydraulics, and stream ecology. After completing his master’s degree at UC Davis with a thesis on hydraulic modeling of the Lower Yuba River, Tarick moved on to consulting, where he has been refining his understanding of natural channel processes and implementing a wide variety of stream and wetland restoration designs. Throughout his career, Tarick has assisted government agencies and local non-profits with large-scale, multi-year restoration efforts, as well as helped private landowners repair storm damage with innovative bioengineered bank protection designs.
A creative and flexible approach to problem solving has enabled Mr. Abu-Aly to achieve consensus among interested parties and bring numerous challenging and complex projects to completion. By using state-of-the-art modeling tools to tell a visual and compelling story, Tarick conveys detailed technical information to a non-technical audience in a manner that clearly communicates the project constraints and benefits. His thorough knowledge of regulatory permitting requirements enables him to streamline the permitting process by presenting designs that provide meaningful environmental benefits while also protecting critical infrastructure.
Tarick considers fieldwork to be a crucial component of his job. By observing natural processes at work, he is able to present designs that are tailored to a specific hydrologic setting, rather than following a one-size-fits-all approach. His field experience includes directing aerial mapping and remote sensing data collection efforts using unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) as well as conventional topographic and bathymetric data collection.
- California P.E. C81992
- M.S. Civil and Environmental Engineering, Water Resources at University of California Davis, 2012
- B.S., Bachelor of Science in Civil and Environmental Engineering at University of California Davis, 2009
1D/2D Hydraulic Modeling, ArcGIS, AutoCAD, BAHM, Fish Habitat, Fish Habitat and Passage, Fish Passage, GIS Analysis, Grant Strategies and Management, Groundwater, HEC-HMS, Hydraulics, Hydrologics, Illustration, Low Impact Design (LID), Outreach, Remote Sensing, Restoration Design, Riverine-Lagoon Dynamics, Sediment Transport, Sediment Transport Data Collection and Analysis, Sierra Meadows, Stormwater Detention, Stormwater Treatment, Stream Restoration, Stream and River Restoration, Water Policy, Water Quality, Watershed Studies, Wetland Restoration