1. Using GIS to Manage and Analyze Natural Woodland Areas
February 20th 2008

2. Introduction Gunty Atkins Shaun Scholer Gis Coordinator
Wayne County, Indiana
(765)
Shaun Scholer
GIS Manager
(765)

3. Agenda Why Conserve? Options Partnerships Data/Maps
These are the items we are going to cover today.

4. Why Conserve? If you have a monopoly why not utilize it. Economics
Because it is easy.
1: The highest quality of walnut and oak in the world grows from western PA to eastern IL from KY and up to Michigan why not utilize it.
2:The forest based industry employs 47,000 and pays total wages of $1.36 billion, according to a 2004 study by BioCrossroads, a life sciences economic development group.
$354 million – Annual Indiana exports of forest-based products.
$175 million – Revenue Hoosier landowners receive each year from timber sales.
184 – Number of Indiana sawmills.
3: conditions are prime for growing hardwoods in Indiana. If you do nothing to your lawn for 50 years you will have a hardwood forest.
Most forests remaining in wayne county are either on sloping ground or ground with soil types that are not desirable for cropland. On that land, trees have the same problems as corn therefore GIS can assist in identifying the ideal conditions to grow prime hardwoods. like soil types, and also GIS can provide foresters with more up to date information, Track invasive plants and insects. 4 4

5. Why Conserve? A Little History
When Settled by the Europeans Indiana was 90% Forest. (Approx 20 Million Acres)
By the Early 1900’s the Landscaped Changed
1922 Dept of Conservation Annual Report Stated that Indiana Contains 22,402,502 Acres
Yearbook of Indiana Credits the State with 1,664,886 Acres of Timberland
By 1920 Area Shrunk to 1,387,248 Acres
A Loss of 92,456 Acres a Year
When Indiana Was first Settled, it was about 90% Forest (Approx 20 million Acres). The next 100 years brought prosperity and growth. The land was cleared and we became a successful agricultural state, at the expense of our woodlands. By the early 1900’s the pristine landscape changed dramatically.
1922 Department of Conservation Annual Report stated that "Indiana contained 22,402,502 acres. The yearbook of Indiana for 1917 credits the state with 1,664,886 acres of timberland. This area had shrunk in 1920 to 1,387,248 acres- an average annual decrease of 92,456 acres.
It is interesting to note that up until 1920, all land was taxed at the same rate. It did not matter if the property was identified as cropland, wasteland, woodland, pasture, or swamp, it was all taxed the same. Property owners were almost forced into cutting their forests to convert them to either cropland or pasture.

6. Options\Partnerships
Classified Forest Program
Conservation Easements
The two Items I am going to cover today is Classified forests and Conservation Easements.
By 1920, there was a movement afoot to develop a means to encourage woodland owners to keep their land in trees. In 1921, the Indiana legislature passed the Indiana Forest Classification
This Act encouraged proper timber management and watershed protection on private forests. The incentive for landowners to enroll their lands in the program was a reduction in property taxes. Property taxes on qualifying land was determined by assessing the land at $1.00 per acre
The basics of this program are no grazing, no building, no clear cutting (unless you replant), no burning, and you must have a minimum of 10 acres and last but not least you must have trees.
Thru programs like this the area of Forest has grown in Indiana from 1.4 mil acres in 1920 to 4.55 Mil in 2003 with 83.4% of all forest lands owned by private land owners.
You can assist your state forester by providing him accurate parcel maps and provide him with accurate Classified Forest boundries.

7. Land Trusts in Indiana
land trusts oversee and protects land that has been donated, purchased, or placed in a conservation easement.
The primary purpose of a conservation easement is to protect agricultural land, timber resources, and/or other valuable natural resources such as wildlife habitat, prime farmland, clean water, or scenic open space by separating the right to subdivide and build on the property from the other rights of ownership. The landowner who gives up these "development rights" continues to privately own and manage the land and may receive significant state and federal tax advantages for having donated the conservation easement. Perhaps more importantly, the landowner has contributed to the public good by preserving the conservation values associated with their land for future generations. In accepting the conservation easement, the easement holder has a responsibility to monitor future uses of the land to ensure compliance with the terms of the easement and to enforce the terms if a violation occurs.
The advantage is the land owners get to keep the land as it’s present use and in the terms of donating the “development rights” the land owner can take this as a tax deduction, and may benefit in estate planning

8. Land Trusts in Wayne County
There are two land trusts in Wayne County WWVLT based in Centerville IN and Red-Tail Based in Muncie. On a National level there is the Nature’s Conservancy”
Also on the state level, Indiana Historic Landmarks maintain easements mainly for preserving Architectural facades of buildings, but in Wayne County they do have one that is in place to preserve a farm. I also recently discovered about 15 easements belonging to IHL that were put on houses in the late 80’s and early 90’s.
Wayne county also has 10 Conservation Easements placed on farm/woodlands….
By mapping these easements, you can help your local planners, by pointing out restriction that have been put on a property, and in doing so you may prevent some headaches down the road.
The Whitewater Valley Land Trust has been vital to Wayne County in acquiring a state nature preserve. To accomplish this the leadership had to acquire grants and convince state officials that this area would be Ideal for a preserve. There had been studies done (some going back 40 years) and the Lick creek portion is a very diverse area with over 380 plant species alone including several that are threatened in some form or another.

9. I was able to assist them by using the simplest part of GIS……
I was able to assist them by using the simplest part of GIS……..Making pretty maps.
The funds that are used to acquire land by the Department of Natural Resources are from the sale of environmental license plates and the program is called the Indiana Heritage Trust.
This fund is for the acquiring of land, not providing the resources to manage the land. Because of this, the state likes to buy “infill” properties to add to existing Parks, forests preserves and recreation areas. Making it very difficult for New stand alone sites to be developed.
The way this problem was solved was that the WWVLT would take ownership of the property and give the state a conservation easement. This allows the State to put restrictions on the property and allow WWVLT to manage the site. This administration likes to find creative ways do doing projects and to pull this off WWVLT had to show they were serious and capable. The use of GIS by providing them the necessary data and maps helped seal the deal.
And thru the Efforts of the WWVLT Wayne county now has a 315 Acre Nature preserve
Green area is the New state Nature Preserve. Lick creek hills.
Tan Areas are other Conservation easements held by WWVLT and RED TAIL
Blue areas are the cope environmental center and a 40 acre woods owned by Earlham college.

10. Indiana Heritage Trust Projects 2006
Note how few projects were in East Central Indiana

11. Maps
1893 Atlas
Wayne county had an opportunity to scan our 1893 Atlas of wayne county. I rectified each township in ArcView and then using my photo editing software GIMP I cropped each map and tiled them together.
then I created a new Image for the east and west halves of the county (files were getting large and difficult to work with) then I rectified them again in ArcView.
From this, I digitized the areas designated as woodlands and created A shapefile that shows how woodlands looked in 1893.
I am also collecting the housing points and I would like to start collecting the names to create a searchable layer for the web
From this project I was able to do some woodland analysis. 11 11

12. 228,000 Acres Assessed as Agricultural Land
Agricultural assess land in Wayne County is 228,000 Acres or 88%

13. 37,000 Ag Acres Assessed as Woodland
37,000 of those Acres are Woodlands. It must be noted these areas are for the assessors use and what I would classify as woodland would differ from them. They included heavy tree lines and some scrub areas that normally would not be identified as woodlands.
When I was creating the Landuse layer, I also identified tree plantings, those that could be identified from aerial photographs and from the knowledge of working for the County Surveyor from the beginning of time. Another project I would like to do is to find out some info on when the plantings took place, the species and spacing of the tree plantings.

14. 5,200 Acres are Classified Forest and 1,400 Acres are Classified Wildlife Habitat
There are 5,200 Acres that are classified forest and 1,400 acres classified as wildlife habitat, another program similar to the classified forest program

15. 41,000 Acres of Woodlands in 1893
There were 41,000 Acres of woodlands in Wayne county in 1893 according to what I digitized. Because this atlas is very accurate with land features that can be identified today, like roads and buildings and ponds, I believe that the woodland areas are the best and most accurate Historic woodland areas available to me. And as a note, these areas don’t include tree lines like in our current landuse data.

16. Intersect 1893 Woodlands with Current Ag Woodlands

17. Results 14,000 Acres of Woodlands over 100 Years old
Of the 5,200 Acres of Classified Forest, 2,600 Acres are Over 100 Years Old
14,000 acres of the woodlands in Wayne county are over 100 years old that is equivalent to 5% of all Ag lands
You could compare historic woodlands with soil types to help in determining areas prime for reforestation. The next speaker is going to discuss threatened species, You may have a rare bird that lives in deep ravine old growth forests. Maybe the District forester would like to know those land owners that own 10 or more acres of High quality timber, to try to convince them to Classify there land. These things can be easily identified by the most basic of GIS analysis now that the time consuming work has been done.

18. Data 258,000 Acres in Wayne County
228,000 Acres Assessed as Agricultural Land
37,000 Ag Acres Assessed as Woodland
Out of those 5,200 Acres are Classified Forest and 1,400 Acres are Classified Wildlife Habitat

19. Conclusions and Final Questions
Gunty Atkins GIS Coordinator Wayne County, Indiana (765) Shaun Scholer Senior GIS Manager (765)
In conclusion GIS is a powerful tool that is all so often kept to ourselves. Look for creative ways to find and create data and with this data share it with the community. If you can assist a school in redistricting, help a land trust acquire grants, assist boy scouts by providing local aerial maps with a grid system so they may learn about orienteering, help map historic structures, assist Economic Development efforts…..step up and assist your community to help make it a better place to live and take the GIS out of the backroom and help show your community leaders why we need this GIS….
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