Track: Environmental Management
Rainwater Basin GIS
Maggie SmithJeff Lucas
Natural resource managers are continually seeking historical and current information pertaining to the natural resources they are charged with stewarding. Continual decline in water quality and quantity, which affects all other natural resources, compounds the difficulty in managing these resources so they will be available and consumable for coming generations. The Rainwater Basin Joint Venture (RWBJV) has developed a management tool, using various Esri GIS software, to assist resource managers in easily tracking the status, trends, and quality levels of the natural resources within the Rainwater Basin area. Utilizing over twenty-five layers of spatial information provided on CD by the RWBJV GIS Committee, resource managers will have the capability to research and analyze soils, groundwater levels, nitrate contamination levels, elevation contours, and neighboring land use characteristics, to name a few. This information can assist managers in reviewing current land and water use practices in addition to planning or restricting future agricultural, municipal, and industrial development. Resource information available in digital format on a portable medium in a GIS will improve information delivery to the landowners, improve quality of decisions, and allow the Joint Venture agency partners (state and federal) to deliver more uniform and timely technical assistance. The ability to take these data to the field in a GIS will place the technology and data into the hands of those specialists that provide technical assistance to landowners and operators. Bringing the natural resources discipline into the technology age will allow for on-site analysis concerning resource management issues.
Maggie Smith
USDA-Natural Resources Conservation Service
2550 N. Diers Rd
Grand Island, NE 68803
USA
Telephone: 308-395-8586 ext 119
Fax: 308-382-3688
E-mail: msmith@ne.nrcs.usda.gov