State Reports - Iowa The Iowa Gap Analysis Project officially started on April 1, 1997 shortly after receiving the first year’s funding. A search has been initiated for a GIS coordinator, and equipment has been ordered. One graduate research assistant has been appointed to help with the vertebrate databases and habitat models. Another graduate student is being recruited to assist with mapping stewardship lands. Kevin Kane, Manager of Iowa State University’s GIS support facility, has agreed to serve as co-principal investigator for GAP. Tom Rosberg, Biology Department, Drake University, has agreed to assist with vegetation mapping. The Iowa Department of Natural Resources (DNR) is assisting in organizing a statewide field survey to identify and locate vegetation alliances on state and county lands. Iowa GAP obtained a 1992 set of TM imagery for Iowa from the EROS Data Center in October 1996. Using the hyperclustered imagery processed for the Multi-Resolution Land Characterization Consortium (MRLC), the Iowa DNR’s Geological Survey Bureau, a major cooperator, began a general land cover classification of the state using counties as mapping units. About 20 counties have been completed. Jim Giglierano is supervising this work for the DNR. Iowa GAP has joined Missouri, Kansas, and Nebraska as a member of the Mid-Western Remote Sensing Consortium to facilitate coordination and standardization of procedures in mapping vegetation. We have received some additional funding from Region 7, Environmental Protection Agency to help us achieve 2-hectare resolution in mapping vegetation alliances. Potential cooperators among federal, state, county, and nongovernmental organizations have been contacted. A committee of plant ecologists has been formed to draw up a working list of vegetation alliances for the state following the recent list for the Midwestern U.S. authored by Drake and Faber-Langendoen. |