Abstract

Geoprocessing Tool Development for Wetlands Data
Track: Ecology and Conservation
Author(s): Thomas Dahl

The Fish and Wildlife Service (Service) is lead agency responsible for maintaining the geospatial wetlands layer for the nation. The Service's Wetlands Geodatabase currently houses over 17 million features to aid resource managers in identifying wetland location, type and size. There is increasing demand for geoprocessing tools that will provide advanced users with additional ecological or geospatial information on a watershed or regional level. Esri's Model Builder has been used to help users make fairly simple determinations such as categorizing freshwater wetlands from tidal systems. More intricate models have been built to determine geographically isolated wetlands or assist in data conversions to meet national standards. The Service is now beginning to post these and other models as analysis tools available to users through ArcGIS Server. They are intended to help facilitate ecological characterizations, assist in wetland functional determinations, or summarize wetland status information for specific applications.

Thomas Dahl
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
555 Lester Ave
Onalaska , Wisconsin 54601
United States
Phone: 608-783-8425
E-mail: tom_dahl@fws.gov