LAND USE and WATER RESOURCES in the MINNESOTA NORTH SHORE DRAINAGE BASIN Carol A. Johnston, Brian Allen, John Bonde, Jim Sal6s
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
LAND USE AND WATER RESOURCES IN THE MINNESOTA NORTH SHORE DRAINAGE BASIN Carol A. Johnston, Brian Allen, John Bonde, Jim Sal6s, and Paul Meysembourg Natural Resources GIS Laboratory (NRGIS) NRRI Technical Report NRRI/TR-91/07 July 1991 Research funded by the Legislative Commission on Minnesota Resources INTRODUCTION Rivers and streams are an important feature of the Minnesota North Shore. A dozen state parks and waysides lie at the mouths of rivers that cascade down the steep slopes of Minnesota’s northern highlands into Lake Superior,-carving beautiful waterfalls out the basalt bedrock. But the rivers that drain the 5778 km2 North Shore drainage basin provide more than scenic beauty, delivering nutrients and other materials to Lake Superior. Lake Superior’s tributaries provide about half of its annual water input (Bennett 1978), more than 90% of its total dissolved solids, and 68% of its phosphorus (Upper Lakes Reference Group 1977). Moreover, the water from these tributaries is delivered to the nearshore zone, in which Lake Superior’s biological communities are concentrated (Rao 1978, Munawar and Munawar 1978, Watson and Wilson 1978). Since these communities of bacteria, algae, and zooplankton form the basis of the food web, the productivity and integrity of Lake Superior’s waters are heavily dependent on water supplied by the North Shore drainage basin. While some of the materials delivered by rivers and streams are essential to aquatic life, excessive inputs of sediment and nutrients can cause nonpoint source pollution, the flow of pollutants from land to water in stormwater runoff or from seepage through the soil. In the Great Lakes, nonpoint source pollution is highest from lands that are urbanized or intensively farmed (Gregor and Johnson 1980). Such intensive land uses are uncommon in the Lake Superior drainage basin, which is 91% forested (Environment Canada et al. 1987). Even under current low-intensity land uses, however, nonpoint source inputs to Lake Superior are not negligable. The majority of Lake Superior’s phosphorus inputs come from nonpoint sources, due to the relative lack of 1 point sources (e.g., sewage treatment plants, industrial outfalls) and the size of the lake’s drainage basin (127,700 km2), that funnels water and materials from an area 1.6 times the surface area of the lake itself. Therefore, even a small nonpoint source pollution yield per unit area of drainage basin can result in a large cumulative total delivered to the lake. Inputs of nitrogen and phosphorus from Lake Superior’s tributaries contribute 34x the nitrogen and 12x the phosphorus of municipal and industrial inputs combined (Table 1). When land uses intensify, nonpoint source inputs can increase, potentially affecting the streams that deliver water into Lake Superior as well as portions of the lake itself. The major land use change currently occurring in the Lake Superior drainage basin is the increase in deforestation resulting from demand for wood and paper products, which is projected to increase total harvest by 50% between 1988 and 1995 (Minnesota DNR 1989). We know that the extensive pre-settlement logging of the Great Lakes drainage basin affected water quality, as indicated by sediment evidence of increased phosphorus concentrations (Kemp et al. 1972) and diatom production (Stoermer et al. 1985; Schelske et al. 1988), and model predictions of increased phosphorus loading (Chapra 1977). However, we don’t know the magnitude of land affected by more recent clearcutting, nor its effects on water resources. The purpose of this report is to describe these land use changes and other characteristics of the Minnesota North Shore drainage basin that could potentially affect fluxes of sediment and nutrients into Lake Superior. 2 Table 1. Drainage basin inputs of nitrogen and phosphorus (as total N and P) to the Great Lakes, metric tons/yr (Upper Lakes Reference Group 1977). Source Direct Direct Sampled Unsampled Total Municipal Industrial Tributaries Tributaries NITROGEN: Michigan 50 65 4050 1470 5640 Wisconsin 149 6 3060 3070 6290 Minnesota 50 39 7320 551 7870 Ontario 249 456 14700 2420 17800 TOTAL 498 566 29130 7511 37600 PHOSPHORUS: Michigan 22 6 206 63 297 Wisconsin. 60 2 485 456 1000 Minnesota 14 4 496 27 540 Ontario 36 88 920 178 1220 TOTAL 132 100 2107 724 3057 METHODS Geographic Information Systems (GISs) were used to enter and analyze mapped information pertainent to forests and water quality of the North Shore drainage basin. Data were summarized from existing databases obtained from the Minnesota Land Management Information Center (LMIC) and the U.S. Geological Survey, as well as databases created at the Natural Resources Research Institute for this and previous projects (Table 2). Data were summarized for three different levels of geographic extent: the drainage basin as a whole, the coastal zone, and individual watersheds for the Lester and Gooseberry rivers. Existing maps and databases were used for the drainage basin and coastal zone, but their level of spatial resolution and classification detail was inadequate for the individual watersheds. For example, when the data from the Minnesota Soil Atlas were 3 summarized for the Lester River watershed, it was found that a single patch of one soil landscape unit covered 82% of the watershed (11,000 ha). This is due to the course resolution of the original map, which is inappropriate for analysis of individual watersheds. 1. Detailed Watershed Studies The boundaries of the Lester and Gooseberry River watersheds were mapped by determining the location of topographic divides on 1:24,000 USGS topographic maps with contour intervals of 10 or 20 feet. The location of water quality sample points used by co investigator Naomi Detenbeck were used to map subwatersheds, which were digitized using a Calcomp digitizing table and a PC-ARC/INFO GIS. Several county, state, and federal agencies maintain detailed land use maps for portions of the study site watersheds, but there are differences among them in classification, and none of the agencies maps private lands. The Minnesota Land Management Information System (MLMIS100) includes a land cover map as of 1969, but its age and generality (40 acre minimum mapping unit and a classification system does not distinguish forest types nor sylvicultural practices) limit its use in this region. Updated land cover maps being prepared by The International Coalition with LCMR funding are not completed in northeastern Minnesota. Therefore, it was decided to prepare new land use maps for the study site watersheds. Detailed land use/land cover maps (1:24,000) were prepared by stereoscopic interpretation of 9" x 9" black and white infrared aerial photos of the Lester River watershed (1989 photos) and Gooseberry River watershed (1990 photos). Mapping units as small as 1 ha were classified into one of 30 land use/land cover types and 4 silvicultural practices. Boundaries of land use classes were transferred from the aerial 4 photos to a 1:24,000 USGS topographic map base using a Bausch and Lomb Stereo Zoom Transferscope. The maps were digitized, and PC-ARC/INFO was used to determine the number and area of land use patches by cover type within each of the study site watersheds. Topography was digitized from 1:24,000 topo maps for the Lester watershed and a portion of the Gooseberry watershed using PG-ERDAS (a total of 39,927 elevation points were digitized), but was rendered unusable by a bug in the GIS software. Stream information was obtained from USGS 1:100,000 Digital Line Graph (DLG) files, converted to ARC/INFO format (James and Dulaney 1989), edge-matched, and summarized by watershed to determine stream lengths. 2. Coastal Zone Maps of land use, soil series, and surficial geology were analyzed for the Minnesota coastal zone (Table 2). The land use and soil series digital databases were purchased from LMIC (Minnesota State Planning Agency 1978), and the surficial geology map was digitized from "Environmental Geology of the North Shore" (Green et al. 1977) under a project previously conducted by Johnston and Bonde (1990a). Statistical summaries were prepared for each of the maps. The surficial geology maps were also used with previously measured erosion rates (Johnston et al. 1990b) and soil phosphorus data (Bahnick 1977) to calculate the mass of material and associated phosphorus eroded into Lake Superior from clay bluffs along the Minnesota North Shore. 3. Drainage Basin The extent of the Minnesota Lake Superior drainage basin was determined using Minnesota Land Management Information System (MLMIS100) files for St; Louis, Lake, 5 and Cook counties (Table 2). The MLMIS major watershed file was used to identify the outer extent of the North Shore drainage basin, and was used to define the limits of analysis for the remainder of the MLMIS databases: minor watersheds, proximity to water, public ownership, forest cover, soil geomorphic units, soil landscape units, elevation, and slope. The watersheds for each river or stream draining to Lake Superior was determined by aggregating subwatersheds in the MLMIS minor watershed file. All MLMIS files were analyzed using an EPPL7 GIS. A portion of the map of Minnesota pre-settlement forest cover prepared by F.J. Marshner was scanned using an Eikonix camera, and intersected with the MLMIS major watershed file to determine forest characteristics-of the North Shore drainage basin prior to European settlement. Data were summarized and compared with data from the MLMIS "Major forest types, 1977" to determine changes in cumulative forest cover as a result of post-settlement logging. 6 Table 2. GIS data files used and created by this project. USGS = U.S. Geological Survey, LMIC = Minnesota Land Management Information Center. DATABASE DATABASE ORIGINAL MAP SOURCE ORIGINAL DATABASE SOURCE SCALE RESOLUTION STUDY SITE WATERSHEDS: Land use/land cover this study 1989 & 1990 air photos 1:15,840 1:24,000 Subwatersheds this study USGS topographic maps 1:24,000 1:24,000 Topography this study USGS topographic maps 1:24,000 1:24,000 Streams USGS DLGs USGS topographic maps 1:24,000 1:100,000 COASTAL ZONE: Land use LMIC LMIC 1:24,000 1 ha cells Soils LMIC Soil Conservation Serv.