No marine construction work can be carried out without some impact upon the environment. Increasing environmental restrictions on dredging and landfill activities have resulted in a growing need for environmental control systems, which make it possible to avoid unacceptable environmental impacts.

DHI has been responsible for formulating and implementing Environmental Monitoring and Management plans for a number of coastal reclamation projects in South East Asia. These draw on DHI's strong capabilities in field survey, marine and intertidal habitat assessment, water quality monitoring, and DHI's traditional engineering and modelling capabilities related to hydrodynamics and sediment plume forecast. 

A feedback system based on the combined use of numerical models and monitoring surveys of sediment spill and key biological variables representing the impacted ecosystems has been pioneered by DHI for the environmental management of dredging and reclamation operations. 

Feedback monitoring is based on a combination of planning, monitoring and evaluation.  Initially, model forecasts are made of the environmental impact of the planned dredging operations in order to optimise the overall construction progress.  Secondly, measurements of the hydrodynamic and biological conditions and sediment spills are coupled to a numerical sediment plume hindcast model in order to predict the realised temporal and spatial impacts of the operations. If tolerance criteria for the various biological and human communities present in the area are exceeded, work plans are modified and the process repeated through to the end of the reclamation.

For large projects, the data collected by the feedback system may be stored and accessed over the internet by authorised users using the MIKE INFO and MIKE  Monitor suite of software.
Feedback monitoring has been used by DHI for the major reclamation works at Bali Turtle Island and some dredging and reclamation projects in Malaysia and Singapore.