Looking for Prairie Remnants: Jo Daviess County Illinois Prairie Site Evaluation

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Looking for Prairie RemnantsJo Daviess County
Illinois Prairie Site Evaluation

• A Community Based Learning Project
• Applying GIS
• Margaret Grommes, student
• Dan Harms, Instructor

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Prairie Site Evaluation

• Cooperating parties
• Jo Daviess Carroll Area Vocational Center CAD/GIS
  class
• Jo Daviess Conservation Foundation
• Northwest Illinois Chapter of the Prairie
  Enthusiasts

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Goals

• Analyze data to identify potential prairie
  remnant locations
• Incorporate observations of early surveyors
• Identify and map ecosytems in the county
• Map aspect and match to known prairie remnant
  sites
• Georeference data to facilitate GPS location of
  prairie remnants

Mixed Tall and Short grass prairie of the U.S.
Great Plains. (Source NRCS)
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Data Sources

• Northwest Illinois Chapter of the Prairie
  Enthusiasts
• Provided tables of ecosystems identified by soil
  type
• United States Department of Agriculture
• SSURGO data Jo Daviess County Illinois
• Illinois Department of Agriculture
• Land Cover of Illinois 1999-2000 Classification
• USGS
• DEMs Jo Daviess County Illinois
• Illinois State Library/Illinois Secretary of
  State
• Landcover of Illinois in the Early 1800s
• ESRI
• Tiger County base map and road data

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Matching Ecosystems to SSURGO Data
Ecosystem data was scanned and captured as text.
When converted to a table in Access it was joined
to the soil map, creating an ecosystem map.
County Soil Map
Ecosystem Map
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Historic Land Cover from the 1800s
The Illinois State Library and Illinois Natural
History Survey created a 1800s land cover map
based upon the original Public Land Surveys.
Jo Daviess County was clipped from the state-wide
data.
The resulting data was reclassified to represent
the land cover observed by the original land
surveyors.
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Aspect Mapping
USGS DEMs for Jo Daviess County were downloaded
and mosaiced. From this mosaic hillshade and
aspect maps were created.
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Mapping soil development vegetation
A major factor in soil development is the native
vegetation. Investigators can use the soil orders
as a guide to the original vegetation on a site.
Current Land use The Illinois Department of
Agriculture provided current land use data..
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About the school
About the project

• The Jo Daviess Carroll Area Vocational Center
  provides vocational/technical training to juniors
  and seniors from six cooperating schools.
• GIS is an integral part of the Computer Aided
  Drafting class.
• Students work individually in a competency based
  system.
• GIS platforms used ArcView 3.2, ArcMap 8.0,
  AutoDesk Map
• Students are encouraged to participate in
  community-based learning programs, gaining skills
  while adding value to the community.
• 75 of vocational center students plan on
  continuing their education after high school.

• The Prairie Site Evaluation dataset was provided
  to the Jo Daviess Conservation Foundation for use
  in their GIS.
• The data was projected to match the data existing
  in the Jo Daviess Conservation Foundation GIS.
• This is an ongoing project between the school and
  the agencies.
• The following slide shows the final map presented.

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