14  Patty, Nic, Nora Check-in 12MAR2024

Date: Tuesday, March 12, 2024

14.0.1 Attendees

  • Patty Burns
  • Nic Jelinski
  • Nora Pearson

14.0.2 Agenda

  1. Discussion on soil data and urbanization
  2. Defining the project Area of Interest (AOI)
  3. Next steps

14.0.3 Meeting Summary

14.0.3.1 Soil Data and Urbanization

  • Patty shared her analysis of the soil data, highlighting areas with no data, partially populated data, and fully populated data.
  • Urban areas and areas with a high percentage of urbanization were generally lacking soil data or had incomplete data.
  • Patty created separate shapefiles for different categories like urban land, partially populated areas, wetlands, floodplains, and pits.
  • The team discussed the Arden Hills Army Training Site (AHATS) and the need to contact the Army Reserves for potential data access and updates.
  • Wetland data in Ramsey County seemed incomplete, and the team discussed leveraging existing soil series concepts to fill in the gaps.

14.0.3.2 Defining the Project AOI

  • The team discussed using the TIGER urban area file from the census as a basis for defining the contiguous urbanized area, conforming with the project agreement language.
  • Suggestions were made to clip off certain non-contiguous areas, islands, and areas connected only by roads.
  • The Minnesota River floodplain was proposed to be included, with a straight line drawn across the floodplain in Carver/Scott counties to avoid intrusion into undeveloped areas.
  • The team agreed to exclude areas like Sherburne and Wright counties, which are too far from the core urbanized area for the current project scope.
  • Nora and Nic planned to work on creating a draft AOI shapefile based on the discussed criteria.

14.0.3.3 Next Steps

  • Nora and Nic will create a draft AOI shapefile and send it to Patty.
  • Patty will share the draft AOI with Joe and other stakeholders for feedback and approval.
  • Once approved, Patty will incorporate the AOI into NASIS and identify the target map units for updating.
  • The team discussed acquiring hard copies of county geological atlases to better understand the geology and parent materials in the AOI.

14.0.4 Action Items

  • Nora and Nic: Create a draft AOI shapefile and send it to Patty.
  • Patty: Share the draft AOI with stakeholders for feedback and approval.
  • Nora: Obtain hard copies of county geological atlases for Patty (Nic has on campus).

14.0.5 Next Meeting

The team agreed to meet again the following Wednesday (March 20, 2024) for a progress update.