Tag Archives: Iowa

Celebrating Zero Emissions Day with Landsat – A Solar Farm in Wapello, Iowa

By iowaviewSeptember 21, 2022#Time Lapse Tuesday, Education, Landsat, Landsat Golden Jubilee, Outreach, Remote Sensing#IowaView, #Landsat50, Bands 652, Changing Sandbars, Iowa, Landsat Golden Jubilee, Louisa County, Reduce Emissions, September 21, Solar Farm, Southeast Iowa, Wapello, Zero Emissions Day

Change Over Time – Flooding on the Landscape (NW Iowa)

By iowaviewAugust 24, 2022Education, Environmental Change, Imagery, Landsat Golden Jubilee, Observation, Remote Sensing#Landsat50, 1990, 1993, 2008, 2022, Barringer Slough, Clay County, Des Moines River, drought recovery, Emmetsburg, flooding, Flooding on the Landscape, heavy flooding, Iowa, Landsat Golden Jubilee, Little Sioux River, Lost Island Lake, NW Iowa, Palo Alto, Remote sensing, Spencer, Trumball Lake

Use sliders to compare images.

Today’s image shows an area in northwest Iowa between Spencer (Clay County) and Emmetsburg (Palo Alto County). The two images on the left are showing water levels in 1990 (typical year) and 2022 (recovering from a drought) compared to 1993 (heavy flooding) and 2008 (flooding). Notice the swollen streambanks and flooding along water bodies in the right images.

This year we are celebrating 50 years of the Landsat earth observing satellite mission. Landsat data helps us observe changes in our communities and environment over time.

Happy Summer Solstice Week! Let’s head to the lake!

By iowaviewJune 24, 2022Education, Imagery, Landsat, Landsat Golden Jubilee, Observation, Outreach, USGS#Landsat50, Cerro Gordo County, Clear Lake, Explore Iowa, Fall Equinox, imagery, Iowa, Landsat 8, Landsat Golden Jubilee, Spring Equinox, Summer Solstice, Winter Solstice

We are continuing our celebration of the 50th year of the US Landsat satellite imagery program. This week we are heading to the lake – Clear Lake, Iowa, located in north central Iowa.

Below are four images showing Summer Solstice (6/13/2019), Fall Equinox (9/17/2019), Winter Solstice (12/22/2019), and Spring Equinox (3/18/2019) from Landsat 8. The images are presented in color infrared which shows vegetation in red rather than green for better contrast.

Observations:

At Summer Solstice things are still greening up while at Fall Equinox the fields are all green and some are beginning to be harvested.
Observe the different states of the lake: open water, snow covered, and frozen.
The topography of the landscape (ie. hills and roughness) are much more apparent with snow on the ground. In the summer/fall images, it all looks flat.

What else do you notice? Happy Observing!

Way back when before the Saylorville Dam – #Throwback Thursday

By iowaviewJune 9, 2022#Throwback Thursday, Education, Environmental Change, Imagery, Landsat Golden Jubilee, Observation, Outreach#Landsat50, #ThrowbackThursday, drinking water, flood control, Iowa, Landsat 1, Landsat 3, Landsat Golden Jubilee, Polk County, Reservoir, Saylorville Dam, US Army Corps of Engineers

It’s another Throwback Thursday. Saylorville Lake and Dam are located in Central Iowa northwest of Des Moines, Iowa. The Saylorville complex was built to help with flood control and as a drinking water source for surrounding communities. At normal levels, the Saylorville reservoir stores 21.1 billion gallons of water with capacity at flood levels to hold 204.1 billion gallons of water.

Below are several resources if you are interested to learn more about this important structure north of Des Moines:

U.S. Army Corps of Engineers – Saylorville Lake Fact Sheet – https://www.mvr.usace.army.mil/Portals/48/docs/CC/FactSheets/ODS/Saylorville%20Lake%20-%20Operations.pdf
GEOLOGY OF THE SAYLORVILLE SPILLWAY; AFTER THE FLOOD OF 2008 – https://www.iihr.uiowa.edu/igs/publications/uploads/GSI-084.pdf
A Guide to Saylorville Lake in Central Iowa – https://desmoinesoutdoors.com/a-guide-to-saylorville-lake-in-central-iowa/

This year we are celebrating 50 years of the Landsat earth observing satellite mission. Landsat data helps us observe changes in our communities and environment over time.

More progress made on the 2020 LiDAR release (Western Iowa)

By iowaviewMay 27, 2022Announcement, Imagery, Iowa Geographic Map Server, LiDAR, Observation, Resource2020 LiDAR, Audubon, Cherokee, Completing the state, Crawford, Ida, Iowa, Iowa Geographic Map Server, Osceola, Shelby

Six additional counties in western Iowa have been added to the 2020 LiDAR service: https://arcg.is/15eHuH0

Map of completed LiDAR services for Iowa counties.

Brushy Creek: The Birth Of A Reservoir – #Time Lapse Tuesday

By iowaviewMay 17, 2022#Time Lapse Tuesday, Education, Environmental Change, Imagery, Landsat Golden Jubilee, Observation, Outreach, Remote Sensing#Landsat50, #TimeLapseTuesday, Brushy Creek Lake, Brushy Creek State Recreation Area, Dam, Iowa, Landsat Golden Jubilee, Reservoir

Today’s time lapse video is highlighting the damming of Brushy Creek and the creation of 690-acre Brushy Creek Lake, Iowa’s deepest artificial lake.

Watch the dam development begin around 1994 and then the lake begin to fill around 1998. The Brushy Creek State Recreation Area is a 6500-acre park located in north central Iowa. To read more about the park at the Iowa Department of the Natural Resources Brushy Creek page: https://www.iowadnr.gov/portals/idnr/uploads/parks/parkmaps/brushycreekmap.pdf

This year we are celebrating 50 years of the Landsat earth observing satellite mission. Landsat data helps us observe changes in our communities and environment over time.

#TimeLapse Tuesday – Spot the Change – Urban Growth of Ankeny, Iowa

By iowaviewMay 3, 2022#Time Lapse Tuesday, Education, Environmental Change, Imagery, Landsat, Landsat Golden Jubilee, Observation, Remote Sensing#Landsat50, Ankeny, farm land, golf course, growing city, imagery, Iowa, Remote sensing, retention ponds, urbanization

What changes do you notice in this Landsat time lapse video?

1) The areas of purple and white in the image are urban areas. Throughout the video they fill in the area from the bottom to the center. The pink areas are farm land.

2) Did you notice the increase in the number of retention ponds (dark blue specks in the urban areas) over time? Retention ponds are used to prevent flooding and provide for water storage in urban areas. As areas become urbanized there is often more surface covered in concrete, parking lots and buildings. There are fewer places for the water to flow directly into the ground.

3) Did you spot the golf course on the northern edge of the city?

This year we are celebrating 50 years of the Landsat earth observing satellite mission. Landsat data helps us observe changes in our communities and environment over time.

This video was created using Google Earth Engine. You can create your own time lapse videos by visiting: https://emaprlab.users.earthengine.app/view/lt-gee-time-series-animator.

More 2020 LiDAR released on the Iowa Geographic Map Server

By iowaviewMay 2, 2022Announcement, Imagery, Iowa Geographic Map Server, LiDAR, Observation, Resource2020 LiDAR, Adams, Cass, Completing the state, Fremont, Iowa, Iowa Geographic Map Server, Mills, Montgomery, Page, Pottawattamie, Taylor

Eight more counties in southwest Iowa have been added to the 2020 LiDAR services: https://arcg.is/1PfriS

Iowa Absentee Voter Return Map

By iowaviewOctober 21, 2020Education, Map, OutreachAdair, Adams, Allamakee, Appanoose, Audubon, Benton, Black Hawk, blue, Boone, Bremer, Buchanan, Buena Vista, Butler, Calhoun, Carroll, Cass, Cerro Gordo, Cherokee, Chickasaw, Clarke, Clay, Clayton, Clinton, Crawford, Dallas, Davis, Decatur, Delaware, Democrat, Des Moines, Dickinson, Dubuque, Emmet, Fayette, Floyd, Franklin, Fremon, Greene, Grundy, Guthrie, Hamilton, Hancock, Hardin, Harrison, Henry, Howard, Humboldt, Ida, Iowa, Iowa absentee ballots, Iowa Absentee Voter Return Map, Iowa Counties, Jackson, Jasper, Jefferson, Johnson, Jones, Keokuk, Kossuth, Lee, Linn, Louisa, Lucas, Lyon, Madison, Mahaska, Marion, Marshall, Mills, Mitchell, Monona, Monroe, Montgomery, Muscatine, Osceola, Page, Palo Alto, percentage of absentee ballots returned by party in Iowa, Plymouth, Pocahontas, Polk, Pottawattamie, Poweshiek, purple, Red, Republican, Returned absentee ballots, Ringgold, Sac, Scott, Shelby, Sioux, Story, Tama, Taylor, Union, Van Buren, Wapello, Warren, Washington, Wayne, Webster, Winnebago, Winneshiek, Woodbury, Worth, Wright

Happy Wednesday! Here is a map from the Iowa State University Extension Community and Economic Development showing the percent of absentee ballots returned in Iowa by county. There is also a layer that shows percentage of absentee ballots returned by party. This map will be updated regularly as we move towards the election.

https://isugisf.maps.arcgis.com/apps/View/index.html?appid=10a34b747f0f409a8c613ff869c933c9

A Great Day For Earth Observation – Part II

By iowaviewOctober 23, 2019Earth Observation Day, Education, Event, Outreach#EOD2019, #ImprovingtheIowaOSMBasemap, BeforeAndAfter, Iowa, Philippines, Wayland

The second part of Earth Observation Day was dedicated to using OpenStreetMap to remotely map Wayland, Iowa and Mindanao region of the Philippines.

Amy Logan, an IowaView staff member, gave a brief introduction to remote sensing and OpenStreetMap. Then mappers began working on a TeachOSM task – Improving the Iowa OSM Basemap: Wayland, Iowa (https://tasks.teachosm.org/project/981). Beverly Conrad, the city clerk of Wayland came for the mapathon and was able to provide local knowledge about the areas participants were mapping. New mappers were encouraged to do the OSM iD Editor Walk-through before they began mapping. It provides users with a nice hands-on introduction of the OpenStreetMap interface and how to create data.

Beverly Conrad discussing a feature with mapathon participants.

Wayland is a small town (population: 966) in southeast Iowa that has wanted to move towards a GIS asset management system, yet much of their city needed to be mapped. As a result of the volunteer efforts of our 22 mappers during the Earth Observation Day mapathon event, partcipants mapped over 70% of the city, including over 470 buildings as well as sidewalks, alleys, parks, and other points of interest. Below is a before and after screenshot of the OpenStreetMap basemap for the City of Wayland, Iowa.

Thank you, Mappers!

The second project was a Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Task improving the basemap in the Philippines to promote food security. This project added details to the basemap such as minor roads and path, buildings, and farmland.