Definitions - H

HABS - Historic American Building Survey

HAER - Historic American Engineering Record

Hazardous Material
Includes any material defined as hazardous under the latest version of Federal Standard No. 313 (including revisions adopted during the term of the contract). (FAR 52.223-3(a))

A wall or structure constructed at the end of a culvert to prevent earth from spilling into the channel.

Heavy Construction
Those projects that are not properly classified as either building, residential, or highway, and is of a catch-all nature. Such heavy projects may sometimes be distinguished on the basis of their individual characteristics, and separate schedules issued (e.g., dredging, water and sewer line, dams, flood control, etc.). (FAR 22.404-2(c)(4))

Specialist with advanced training in the research, interpretation, and writing of history.

Historic American Building Survey (HABS) or Historic American Engineering Record (HAER)
Architectural and engineering documentation programs that produce a thorough archival record of buildings, engineering structures, and cultural landscapes significant in American history and the growth and development of the built environment.

Historic Character
The sum of all visual aspects, features, materials, and spaces associated with a property's history.

Historic District
A geographically definable area, urban or rural, possessing a significant concentration, linkage, or continuity of sites, landscapes, structures, or objects, unified by past events or aesthetically by plan or physical developments. A district may also be composed of individual elements separated geographically but linked by association or history.

Historic Document
Any recorded information in any medium - paper, magnetic tape, film, etc. - that has a direct physical association with past human event, activity, observation, experience, or idea.

Historic Fabric
The physical elements, from a historically significant period, that were combined or deposited to form a structure as opposed to material used to maintain or restore a structure following its historic period(s). See Material.

Historic Furnishings Report
A study that provides an abbreviated history of a structure's use and documents the type and placement of furnishings to a period of significance.

Historic Landscape
A cultural landscape associated with events, persons, design styles, or ways of life that are significant in American history, landscape architecture, archeology, engineering, and culture; a landscape listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Historic Preservation Factor
The Historic Preservation Factor is the higher costs anticipated when treating cultural resources that are subject to more challenging construction conditions and additional legal compliance. Work on cultural resources often creates additional access, control and protection processes and problems during construction. Labor and material costs often increase significantly because of the required care to select compatible materials and preserve historic fabric. The range for this factor is significantly variable and should be set at the estimator's professional discretion.

Historic Property
Any prehistoric or historic district, site, building, structure, or object included in, or eligible for inclusion in, the National Register of Historic Places maintained by the Secretary of the Interior. This term includes artifacts, records, and remains that are related to and located within such properties. The term includes properties of traditional religious and cultural importance to an Indian tribe or Native Hawaiian organization and that meet the National Register criteria.

Historic Resource Study (HRS)
Primary document used to identify and manage the historic resources in a park. It is the basis for understanding their significance and interrelationships, a point of departure for development of interpretive plans, and the framework within which additional research should be initiated.

Historic Scene
The overall appearance of all cultural resources and their surroundings as they were in the historic period; the cultural resources and their interrelationships that provide the context for understanding and interpreting the events, ideas, or persons associated with a park.

Historic Site
The site of a significant event, prehistoric or historic occupation or activity, or structure or landscape (extant or vanished), where the site itself possesses historical, cultural, or archeological value apart from the value of any existing structure or landscape; see Cultural Landscape.

Historic Structure
A constructed work usually immovable by nature or design, consciously created to serve some human activity. Examples are buildings of various kinds, monuments, dams, roads, railroad track, canals, mill races, bridges, tunnels, locomotives, nautical vessels, stockades, forts and associates earthworks, Indian mounds, ruins, fences and outdoor sculpture.

Historic Structure Assessment Report (HSAR)
No longer produced, HSARs were reports which developed out of the Inventory Condition and Assessment Program (ICAP) and contained feature inventories and cost estimates.

Historic Structure Preservation Guide (HSPG)
No longer produced, HSPGs were guides to the maintenance of a structure following completion of it's treatment.

Historic Structure Report (HSR)
A historic structure report is prepared to minimize loss of character-defining features and materials whenever existing information about the developmental history and condition of the historic structure does not provide an adequate basis upon which to address anticipated management objectives, whenever alternative courses of action for impending treatment and use could have adverse effects, or to record treatment.

Architectural, landscape, and archeological investigations supporting an HSR have the least possible impact on the property studied and employ nondestructive methods to the maximum extent possible.

Historic Structure Report Drawings or Cultural Landscape Report Drawings (HSR or CLR Drawings)
HSR or CLR drawings are prepared in support of Historic Structure Reports and Cultural Landscape Reports and are formatted to DSC HSR and CLR Standards. There are typically three types of HSR and CLR Drawings:

  1. Historic Drawings - Reproduced from original historic design documents (may be scanned and vectorized for conversion to AutoCAD).
  2. Existing Condition Drawings - Drawings and annotations (typically AutoCAD) based on field measurements, sketches, and on-site observations in support the HSR Physical Description narrative.
  3. Recommended Treatment Drawings - Drawings and annotations based on Existing Condition Drawings that illustrate and annotate recommended preservation, restoration, adaptive use, or rehabilitation treatments (typically AutoCAD) in support of the HSR Recommended Treatments narrative.

All of these drawing types may be used to develop Contract Drawing Documents.

Historical Architect (not to be confused with "historic" architect, i.e. Frank Lloyd Wright)
Specialist in the science and art of architecture with specialized advanced training in the principles, theories, concepts, methods, and techniques of preserving prehistoric and historic structures.

Historical Background and Context (Historic Structure Report)
A narrative that briefly describes the people and events associated with a historic structure. The section should establish a recommended period or periods of significance if this has not been done in the National Register nomination or historic resource study (HRS).

Historical Integrity
The authenticity of a structure's historic identity, evidenced by the survival of physical characteristics that existed during its prehistoric or historic period; the extent to which a structure retains its historic appearance.

Historical Landscape Architect
Specialist in the science and art of landscape architecture with advanced training in the principles, theories, concepts, methods, and techniques of preserving cultural landscapes.

Historical Significance
The meaning or value ascribed to a structure, landscape, object, or site based on the National Register criteria for evaluation. It normally stems from a combination of association and integrity.

Study of the past through written records, oral history, and material culture. Evidence from these is compared, judged for veracity, placed in chronological or topical sequence, and interpreted in light of preceding, contemporary, and subsequent events.

HOV Lanes, Bus and Carpool Lanes, Preferential Lanes
A form of preferential treatment in which lands on streets or highways are restricted for the exclusive used of high-occupancy vehicles during at least a portion of the day.

HRS - Historic Resource Study

HSAR - Historic Structure Assessment Report

HSPG - Historic Structure Preservation Guide

HSR - Historic Structure Report


  1. The science encompassing the behavior of water as it occurs in the atmosphere, on the surface of the ground and underground.
  2. The scientific study of the properties, distribution and effects of water on the earth's surface, in the soil and underlying rocks and in the atmosphere.

Did You Know?