Minnesota Water Resources Conference - Water Resources Center ...

Poster Session 4:45–5:45
Development of a Practical Method to Analyze Sod Farm Wetland Hydrology
V. (Rama) Ramanathan, URS Corporation, v_ramanathan@urscorp.com; Joel Toso, URS Corporation
BOOK OF ABSTRACTS
Tuesday, Monday, October 27 23
A practical technique to delineate wetland areas within sod farms has been developed based on the drainage
rates indicated by field data obtained from monitoring wells. The water table elevations midway between
parallel ditches at the end of an eight day drainage period have been used to develop site specific correlations to
determine soil drainage rates as a function of peat depth and the initial height of the water table above the ditch
water surface. A method has been developed to predict the water table profiles taking into account the variation
of peat depth across the cross sections. The predicted water table profiles have been compared to actual field
observations, and close agreement between the predicted values and field data have been demonstrated.
Wetland Web Map Connects Citizens, Staff, Data
Nancy Read, Metro Mosquito Control, nancread@mmcd.org; Brian Fischer, Houston Engineering, Inc.
Citizens call the Metropolitan Mosquito Control District every year asking if particular wetlands in their area
are being treated to prevent mosquito problems. In 2007 we launched a web-based wetland look-up application
that presents our maps of 70,000 metro-area wetlands and 2+ years of complete data about each wetland, with
a backdrop of publicly-available map layers such as streets, city boundaries and aerial photos (see www.mmcd.
org). The intent was to make map and treatment data easily available to staff at disparate locations as well as
allowing citizens to answer questions directly. The site has worked well and received hits from over 3,500 unique
users in 2007, with spikes of activity after media reports. It was assembled using the free open source software
GeoMoose (www.geomoose.org) and MapServer plus an open source geocoder for address lookup, and most of
the map layers are public Web Mapping Services.
Minnesota Water Resources Conference, October 27–28, 20078 50