PURCHASE OF 1.4 MILLION ACRES OF PRIVATE LAND IN NEVADA BY THE

NEVADA LAND & RESOURCE COMPANY:

GIS EVALUATION OF LAND AND NATURAL RESOURCE INFORMATION

Norm Brown

Nils Larsen

In Fall 1995, the Nevada Land & Resource Company ("NLRC") purchased 1.4 million acres of land from the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway Company in northern Nevada's Humboldt River Valley. The land is distributed within 9 counties and has a wide variety of existing and potential uses including urban development, minerals extraction, water resource development, geothermal energy production, and oil and gas development.

As part of the pre-purchase evaluation, NLRC'S GIS and natural resources consultant, Integrated Water Technologies, constructed a GIS database of land targeted for purchase. The database includes information on the location of sections with saleable land; corresponding mineral leases; Public Land Survey System ("PLSS") boundaries; major infrastructure; topography; water-related features including regional hydrographic basins; and regional land use, land ownership, and natural resources. Using GIS tools, the database provided critical information for:

• Evaluating existing mineral lease rights associated with the saleable land;
• Identifying the proximity of saleable land to known locations of geothermal wells and springs, infrastructure, urban areas, oil and gas wells, mines and geologic rock types Figure 1;
• Comparing lists of saleable land holdings developed by several different groups Figure 2;
• Identifying water resources administered by the Nevada State Engineer in 42 hydrographic basins containing the saleable lands Figure 3;
• Categorizing rock types for regions with saleable lands; and
• Generating maps of land holdings in the context of related leasing and resource information for use in the purchase negotiations Figure 4;

Evaluations performed using the GIS database gave NLRC opportunity to address data discrepancies and concerns of several interested parties in a systematic manner, with great flexibility for integrating different data types in a common GIS environment. The database will continue to be used for management of the land and related natural resource assets acquired by NLRC.

Norm Brown is Vice President of Integrated Water Technologies. He oversees company projects in regional resource evaluations and GIS applications.

Nils Larsen is IWT's GIS Coordinator, and is responsible for GIS applications and analysis, and database design and management.

Integrated Water Technologies is headquartered in Santa Barbara, California

iwt@pacrain.com

(805) 565-0996