Examining Expanding Land-Based Recreation in the Iowa Great Lakes

Abstract

The Iowa Great Lakes have been an important recreation setting for the Corn Belt region since the 1800s. The area’s tourism industry generates around $275 million annually. However, the overuse of the region’s recreation resources and adjacent agricultural land use in the watershed has led to issues with increased sediment and nutrient loads, as well as introduced invasive species into the ecosystem. This research examines the potential for expanding the land-based recreation system in the Iowa Great Lakes to support community goals related to tourism and enhance existing conservation efforts. To achieve this, our study sought to inventory current land-based recreation opportunities in the area (Objective 1), identify areas to restore ecosystems and expand land-based recreation (Objective 2), and investigate the existing conservation policy infrastructure present within existing plans within the Iowa Great Lakes (Objective 3). To achieve these objectives, this study utilized both quantitative and qualitative methods. The quantitative analysis occurred in Project One, while Project Two was a qualitative study. Using geospatial analysis, Project One identified 99 suitable parcels for recreation expansion and ecological restoration within the Iowa Great Lakes watershed. These parcels were typically found near existing recreation areas. The location of these parcels was utilized in Project Two, alongside nine government plans present within the watershed, to understand the feasibility of implementing recreation expansion and ecological restoration within the Iowa Great Lakes Watershed. The plans were analyzed for their written content and found some more conceptual recognition for Project One’s related concepts within two of them (The Iowa SCORP and Dickinson County Comprehensive plan). Within the Dickinson County Comprehensive plan, the county’s planners outline the intentions of specific parcels in a planned future uses map, which was compared to the results of Project One. The analysis between these two maps found no overlapping parcels.