Mark Gutshall

Mark Gutshall is a principal and the founder of LandStudies, a recognized leader in the field of environmental restoration and land planning. He has more than 29 years professional experience in designing, permitting, and constructing ecological restoration projects in the Mid-Atlantic region. During that time, he also founded Octoraro Native Plant Nurseries, a wholesale source of native woody and herbaceous plants (1990).

His diverse professional background emphasizes land stewardship and community-based planning, which he has applied to numerous projects in watershed planning, open space planning, stream corridor restoration, flood reduction and stormwater management, habitat improvement, and wetland creation. Mark researches and advocates pioneering land development and management techniques that are functional, cost effective, and environmentally beneficial. He has been a leading voice in the acceptance of “legacy sediments” along stream corridors as a major contributor of sediment and nutrient pollution in waterways throughout the Piedmont physiographic province.

He also has been a groundbreaker in adopting regional or watershed-wide natural resource management as an effective way to create partnerships among private, public, regulatory, non-profit, and educational interests. Both he and LandStudies have earned accolades for his innovative approaches to natural resource management and land planning.