Technical Service Area 8 GIS Technician

A new GIS technician will help prioritize and target conservation activities and protection strategies in nine north-central Minnesota counties. The GIS technician will create GIS products, assessments, and watershed analysis to identify the high priority areas in each County or watershed in need of protection or restoration using all available data, including LiDAR, soils, land use, completed WRAPS and other datasets. These areas will then be targeted for future resource management efforts, Clean Water Fund projects, and additional conservation activities.

Project deliverables include: summarizing physical and socioeconomic characteristics of the area of interest, evaluation of land use trends and potential effects on water quality, stream power index, digital analysis of shoreline erosion potential, distributed soil loss (RUSLE) calculations, developing sediment delivery budgets and creating nutrient delivery indices. These products will improve the targeting strategies for conservation practices and better evaluate the potential impacts of such measures. The stormwater assessment and design will define catchment areas and identify potential treatment opportunities in cities and towns adjacent to surface waters in the member counties. Site visits by local staff will be conducted to verify information used to complete modeling and initial design. The resulting cost/benefit analyses of the potential stormwater treatment practices will be delivered to the community and incorporated into local water management plans.