What sort of project did I do?

Rice County has recently asked the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources (DNR) to describe to them the type of work that is done in the county and to assess how future development will affect identified natural resources. The DNR would like to highlight important details about their function in the county while reducing the volume of paper handouts, so they have decided to include maps as part of their package of information (after all, a picture is worth 1000 words!). The DNR would like to present maps that highlight the type, locality and extent of natural resources in the area. As a service learning project for Global Change Biology, I have volunteered to make those maps. My responsibility has been to create maps of each of the fourteen townships in Rice County and two maps of the entire county that describe the type, location and extent of natural features in the County. These maps feature elements such as land use cover, natural communities, rare species locations, lakes, rivers, and public lands. These maps will be given by the DNR to steering committees at both the township and county level. The goal of these steering committees is to create a County Comprehensive Plan, which will include a development map for the county to guide future growth. The main purpose of my project has been to produce presentation-quality maps of the county and the fourteen townships which highlight areas of concern to the Minnesota DNR.

There are many issues involved in this project. The most important issue this project touches on is that of raising awareness of the existence and location of rare species in the county. It is imperative that development planners in Rice County are aware of such features within their vicinity. If this information is not presented to them, many unique and rare natural features in the county could be at risk of losing their habitats to new developments. The township steering committees hopefully will plan development that preserves natural communities and rare species. My maps will help them to see exactly where such areas are located within their vicinity. Abundance of natural communities is also an issue that my project addresses. The maps I have created visually show the extent to which a certain natural community exists in Rice County. One close look at a map of natural communities and rare species, and one can see where certain types of natural communities are in danger of being lost to development. One can also see how abundant a certain type of natural community is in Rice County by looking at one of the maps I have created. Another issue that my project touches on is the existence of rare and sensitive species on private and public property. Combining the land use data with the rare species data will show on whose land rare species are located. This may or may not be an issue in development planning.

Description of my methods

After I talked with Richard Peterson, the area forester for the DNR, about what he would like to see on these maps, I set out to find data. To my delight, I happened upon the DNR’s Data Deli web page, http://deli.dnr.state.mn.us/, which was the primary source for my geographical data. I downloaded zipped point, line and polygon shapefiles of land use cover, watersheds, lakes, streams, major roads, Department of Transportation highways, county and section boundaries, Scientific and Natural Areas (SNAs), and wetlands. I then unzipped each of the files using WinZip and brought them into ArcView GIS using Import71. The Wildlife Management Area (WMA) data I obtained from Bill Marken, the DNR’s regional GIS specialist. These data are deemed reliable but not guaranteed because they are part of a work in progress. The Rare Species and Natural Communities data I obtained from Richard Baker, Natural Heritage Information System Data Distribution Coordinator at the Natural Heritage and Nongame Research Program of the Division of Fish and Wildlife, Minnesota DNR. These biological data are highly confidential, and an extensive license agreement and contract was needed before I could actually obtain the data on a CD. All of the DNR data were in the North American Datum 1983 (NAD83), based on the GRS1980 Spheroid, UTM (Universal Transverse Mercator) projection, Zone 15 (the appropriate region of the country), with units of meters. I did not need to reproject these data in ArcView. Some of these data I digitized myself, such as township lines, city boundaries and a couple of WMAs from the Minnesota County Biological Survey’s map of Natural Communities and Rare Species[1]. The Scenic Waterway and Scenic Waterway Access data I obtained from the Cannon River Canoe Route[2] and the Straight River Canoe Route[3] maps from the DNR. Thanks to Sean Fox, Carleton’s Academic Computing specialist, I was able to set up a special secure account on Fabio that was large enough to store my project, including the classified biological data.

Once I had all of these data in ArcView, I created a view for a map. Creating a detailed and visually appealing map is a very intensive and involved process, so I’ll only give a brief summary of the work I did. Most of these Data Deli data and these biological data had to be clipped to fit an outline of Rice County. The wetland data was merged, clipped and dissolved in order to fit nicely on the county outline. Some of the themes were merged (such as the SNA and WMA data) to make things more organized. All of the themes were adjusted to have the right color scheme, thickness, pattern and label. Once I had all of the information I wanted for a particular map, I began the process of labeling, which meant adding things like township and city names, lake and river names, and surrounding county names. After labeling things I moved the data into a layout to create a printable map. I also added a legend, a scale bar, a north arrow, a title and footnotes. This process was repeated for every township and county map I created.

Results

The result of my project is a set of beautiful maps of Rice County and its fourteen townships produced with ArcView GIS software. These maps highlight important natural features in the county such as rare species locations, natural communities, and DNR land. Two examples of maps I have created can be found at the end of this document.

Conclusions/Recommendations

As far as recommendations go, if I were to recommend to the County where NOT to build, the first place I would point out is the southeast corner of Dundas, on the east side of Highway 3. There is a natural hardwood forest there that is home to at least one rare species. I would be curious to know if this is near one of the areas that are currently zoned for commercial development. The only city that really needs to carefully consider development plans in light of rare species locations is Faribault. There is some undeveloped land in the east of Faribault that is currently a hardwood forest that is home to at least seven rare species. It is possible that this area is a park, but development planners should have caution when it comes to building around that area. Otherwise, my general recommendation is for development planners to avoid zoning areas directly surrounding natural communities. Creating a buffer zone around such areas is something that developers should consider. Fragmentation of habitats is also something that should be considered when planning new developments.

Although I have done most of my work independently, I can still say that my experience with the DNR has been a pleasant one. Everyone I talked to was very willing to help me out. I can also say that I have learned a few things by doing this project. I think the thing that has impacted me the most was the high level of confidentiality regarding rare species data. I can understand why, though. If the general public were to know that a rare species of turtle was living in a nearby swamp, for example, people would want to go and look at it. If enough people go to look at the turtle, its habitat could be destroyed or the turtle itself could be killed or trapped. I also enjoyed learning about the biological features of Rice County. It is a good addition to the knowledge I already have about the geology of Rice County, since I’m a geology major. This project also provided me with a CRASH COURSE in the workings of ArcView GIS software. I really didn’t know anything about ArcVeiw before starting this project, but I sure do now. Even though this project has been an immense challenge, I’m glad I have learned how to use ArcView.

Since my project is still a “work in progress”, I am not entirely sure what the final product will be. At most, I may have to slightly change or add a few things to my project. The township steering committee meetings will be held in late April, so I will be working to perfect my maps until the beginning of April. My hope is that these maps will be used to raise awareness of natural areas in Rice County among the County’s chief development planners. Perhaps if these people are aware of their surroundings, they will make an effort not to destroy the unique biological features that exist in Rice County. This is the main reason why I am doing this project. If I can contribute to the conservation of natural communities in Rice County, I will feel very pleased.

A Little Shout Out

I would like to thank the following people for their help with this project: Richard Baker, Bill Marken, and Shannon Flynn, all from the DNR, Sean Fox for the special computer accommodations, and Mary Savina and Joanna Reuter for teaching me how to use ArcView.