Restorable Wetlands Inventory

Overall Project Outcome and Results
The Restorable Wetlands Inventory (RWI) is a complement to the National Wetlands Inventory (NWI) completed in late-1980s by the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service. An administrative decision was made developing the original NWI not to map wetland basins in Minnesota identified as completely drained. The number and acreage of completely drained wetlands that were not mapped by the NWI process is significant.

The RWI project identifies and digitizes the completely-drained depressional wetlands that were not mapped by the NWI process. Restorable wetlands mapping is based upon protocols established for NWI allowing seamless integration of the two datasets.

In the Southwest Prairie Complex, over 300,000 individual restorable wetland basins were identified and mapped. Upon completing the Southwest Prairie Complex mapping, townships in 42 western and south-central counties in the prairie and transition zone eco-regions of Minnesota have been mapped, adding an important component to the State's spatial data infrastructure that informs environmental planning and research. Through this investment in RWI - combined with the National Wetlands Inventory, landcover classifications, and a growing catalogue of high-resolution elevation data - our capacity to understand (and importantly, restore and manage) Minnesota's wetland resources is continuing to improve.

Project Partners were the LCCMR, Ducks Unlimited, Inc., and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The photo-interpretation and digitization work was contracted to the GIS Lab at South Dakota State University.

Project Results Use and Dissemination
The Restorable Wetlands Inventory mapping product for the Southwest Prairie Complex is complete and will be distributed on the Minnesota Data Deli and Ducks Unlimited, Inc. websites by the end of August 2010 in GIS-compatible formats.

Attached are maps showing mapping extent of the current M.L. 2008 appropriation and the cumulative RWI mapping effort.