Updating the National Wetland Inventory for Minnesota ? Phase IV
Over the past 100 years, about half of Minnesota’s original 22 million acres of wetlands have been drained or filled. Some regions of the State have lost more than 90 percent of their original wetlands. The National Wetland Inventory, a program initiated in the 1970s, is an important tool used at all levels of government and by private industry, non-profit organizations, and private landowners for wetland regulation and management, land management and conservation planning, environmental impact assessment, and natural resource inventories. The data behind the National Wetlands Inventory for Minnesota is now considerably out-of-date and a multi-phase, multi-agency collaborative effort coordinated by the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources is underway to update the data for the whole state. This appropriation is being used to conduct the fourth of six phases of this effort, which involves wetlands maps for portions of Lake, Cook, and St. Louis counties in northeastern Minnesota. A completed wetlands inventory will help improve wetland protection and management.
$1,000,000 the first year is from the trust fund to the commissioner of natural resources to continue the update and enhancement of wetland inventory maps for Minnesota. This appropriation is available until June 30, 2016, by which time the project must be completed and final products delivered.
Click on Work Plan under Project Details.
Click on Work Plan under Project Details.