Rapid Procedural Methods for Guiding Subwatershed Conservation Analysis in Northeastern Iowa

• Main Author: Martin E. Murphy
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Subjects: Geographic Information Systems; Williams Creek Subwatershed; Yellow River Watershed; buffers; erosion; images; karst; slope; soil; sinkholes; stakeholders; Postville
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.392.3074; http://www.gis.smumn.edu/GradProjects/MurphyM.pdf

Northeastern Iowa has seen dramatic landscape changes in the last 160 years. What was once a pristine forest and prairie landscape embedded in karst topography is now encased in intensified agriculture and urbanization. The result of our rush to convert these naturally sustained habitats of northeastern Iowa’s Yellow River Watershed into a “better life ” and recent attempts to maximize profits with concentrations of land holdings and production methods is a degraded state of the environment, as reflected in water quality reports. A rapid procedural method for conservation measures using geographic information systems was developed by this research and tested on the Williams Creek Subwatershed. The results describe a subwatershed procedural methodology while indicating 179.2 acres of impervious cover and 5.4 acres of potential erodable slopes contained within a buffered Postville headwater stream. The procedures developed for this project can be modified and applied elsewhere to help target land conservation measures such as riparian buffers, erosion and sediment controls, as well as land treatments and other stewardship activities.