Director of GeoSpatial Services at St. Mary's University of Minnesota in Winona, Barry Drazkowski, gave an informative presentation on "Water and Wetland Management" Saturday at the Agriculture and Water Summit 2010. The Summit was held in Bloomington, sponsored by the Izaak Walton League of America and the Freshwater Society of Minnesota.
Drazkowski was one of several presenters who gave interactive seminars in the afternoon sessions. In his talk, Drazkowski urged, "we need to think of wetlands in terms of their relationship to groundwater movement and the water cycle."
Mapping of Wetlands
The state of Minnesota is still working out how to inventory wetlands, so the presentation explained the challenges and progress of mapping them. Luckily, the Legislative-Citizen Commission on Minnesota Resources (LCCMR) is funding the Department of Natural Resources (MN DNR) to come up with a wetland strategy for the state.
Mapping has its challenges, as some wetlands are in unexpected places like hillsides, or are very small -- less than an acre. Wetlands are therefore sometimes hard to map and scale. Drazkowski insists that "we need a well-thought out hydrology mapping system that supports local management."
Benefits of Wetlands
Wetlands provide groundwater recharge. They remove 90-95% of nitrates, remove phosphorous, improve drinking water quality, reduce flooding, protect shorelines, and provide recreation (yes, this is the most obvious benefit that the general public immediately thinks of regarding wetlands). Wetlands also sequester carbon, provide habitat, and significantly help reduce climate change.
Drazkowski explained that wetlands are one of the critical baselines for understanding hydrological relationships of water in an ecosystem. There were several great slides in his presentation including one that showed wetlands status and losses, as well as one that illustrated drained landscapes typical in most high loss wetland states.
We all know that wetlands directly impact policy-making. What Drazkowski urged the audience to do was to educate the public and legislators on the importance of surface water and encourage legislators and DNR to rise to the challenge. The mantra throughout his presentation was the need for a hydrology mapping system that supports local management.
More Info:
National Wetlands Inventory (NWI) lots of information about the status and mapping of wetlands by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
Overview of the Agriculture and Water Summit 2010 with a recap of some of the presenters and display tables at the event.
More about Mr. Barry Drazkowski:
He is responsible for developing the Upper Mississippi River Basin Stewardship Initiative, the Upper Mississippi Stakeholder Network, protocols for NWI development in Alaska and Iowa, natural resource condition assessments for Denali, Wrangell-St. Elias, Klondike, Devils Tower, Wind Cave, Jewel Cave, Missouri National Recreational River National Parks, British Petroleum's (BP) national pipeline GIS and web-based GIS applications, FWS' NWI update mapping in several states, and a host of other GIS projects. He spent 10 years as a biologist and manager with the Fish and Wildlife Service and USGS, and served as the Deputy Director of the USGS Long Term Resource Monitoring Program for the Upper Mississippi River. He spent his first 10 years with the Federal government as an environmental planner for the St. Paul District, COE.
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