In the late-summer of 2010 and 2011, high-resolution color infrared aerial photography was collected covering the 2.75 million acre Upper Mississippi River System, including the full length of the Illinois River. This photography is being used to create a land cover/land use dataset to compare to datasets that were created previously using 1989 and 2000 aerial photos. These data are used for the Long Term Resource Monitoring Program, an element of the US Army Corp Engineers’s Upper Mississippi River Restoration-Environmental Management Program. Numerous resource managers and researchers use these data to monitor resource availability, land cover changes, and for project planning.
Upper Mississippi River System land cover/land use data viewed using Google Earth.