Floral Surveys 

Land Department staff are compiling a floral survey for the Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community. The floral survey will be a composite of multiple datasets but based on the Minnesota Land Cover Classification System (MLCCS). The MLCCS system classifies parcels by filtering down to the most descriptive land cover classification as it is on the ground rather than landuse. For example, a typical home and lot would be classified as “residential” whereas the MLCCS classifies the same parcel as “short grasses and mixed trees with 26% to 50% impervious cover”.

Land staff have digitized the parcels using a Geographic Information Sytem (GIS). The next step is to upload the parcels into a Global Positioning System (GPS) for field checking. Field checking is important because we need to confirm that parcels we delineated in the office represent those vegetation communities in the field. Also, parcel boundary errors can be marked with the GPS and later corrected. The GPS unit will mark the position in the field and determine how close or if the suveyor is within the boundary of a particular parcel. Once in the parcel boundary, the surveyor can reference the parcel classification and field check it with the vegetation communities on the ground.

Once all the parcels are field checked and corrections made we can cross reference this data with other vegetation data to complete the floral survey. The land department has recently hired an intern that has good experience and education in botany. She has started and will continue an ongoing species inventory throughout her internship. We have a significant tree inventory with over 900 trees to reference.