Metadata: Watershed Management Organizations

- View Sample -

Watershed Management Organizations

This page last updated: 07/10/2008
Metadata created using Minnesota Geographic Metadata Guidelines

Metadata Summary

Originator	Bureau of Water and Soil Resources and Metropolitan Council
Abstract	This dataset depicts watershed district and watershed management organization boundaries within the seven county Twin Cities metropolitan area. The geography and some of the attributes were taken directly from the Minnesota Board of Water and Soil Resources (BWSR) state wide dataset in August of 2003. Additional attributes have been added to match the older Metropolitan Council WMO dataset, and additional data. A watershed district (WD) is a special governmental unit created through a local petition process to address any of a number of possible water management issues (e.g. flood control, stream channel improvements, water conservation, drainage system management, sediment control, riparian area management, water quality protection and enhancement, etc.). Minnesota Statute Chapter 103D governs the formation and operation of watershed districts. A watershed management organization (WMO) is defined as a watershed district wholly within the seven-county, Twin Cities Metropolitan Area or a joint powers entity established wholly or partly in the metropolitan area by special law or agreement to perform some or all of the functions of a watershed district. Minnesota Statute Chapter 103B governs the formation and operation of watershed management organizations. NOTES: - MANY BOUNDARY DISCREPANCIES EXIST WITH THIS DATA SET. See Lineage in Section 2 of this metadata for more details. - This layer is based on BWSR's most current information on watershed districts and WMOs in the State of MN. The dataset is NOT error free, and boundaries are frequently being updated and changed, so these should be used for reference only. It was last updated in August 2003. - Amendmends were made to the BWSR data upon consultation of several WMO plans and the Minnesota Association of Watershed Districts Guidebook ( http://www.bwsr.state.mn.us/publications/WDguidebkforweb.pdf) - Water planning is either the responsibility of a watershed district or a water management org. If neither of these exist, then responsibility falls onto the county. For a more precise boundary determination, check with the BWSR board conservationist for the area in question. - The Minnesota Board of Water and Soil Resources distributes a state wide WMO and WD dataset. The BWSR dataset is distributed on the DNR's Data Deli and can be found at http://deli.dnr.state.mn.us/metadata.html?id=L390002770201 - WMO boundaries that are coincident with county or municipal boundaries within this dataset do not match the county and municipal boundaries within the Metropolitan Council's County_ctu dataset.
Browse Graphic	View a sample of the data.
Time Period of Content Date	2004
Currentness Reference	Attribute data is up-to-date as of the end of 2004, but many unresolved issues exist with actual WMO boundaries. Attempts were made to update in June of 2008 using information from a number of online WMO plans and the Minnesota Association of Watershed Districts Guidebook. See the lineage for more detailed information.
Access Constraints	None
Use Constraints	By acceptance of this data, the user agrees to include a copy of this metadata record, including the liability disclaimer, whenever the user transmits or provides the GIS Data (or any portion of it) to another user. We recommend that other interested parties download this dataset from the Data Finder web site (www.datafinder.org) to ensure that the most current data is obtained.
Distributor Organization	Metropolitan Council
Ordering Instructions	This dataset is distributed on the internet by clicking below after 'Online Linkage'. Doing so will tell your browser to download a 'ZIP' file which will contain the following: - ArcView shape files - metadata for the dataset (.htm) - NOTICE.RTF, an important notice about this dataset that can be read by any word processing software. This dataset can also be viewed and downloaded from the MetroGIS DataFinder Cafe at http://www.datafinder.org/cafe/ . The Cafe allows users to subset or clip datasets using an existing feature, such as a city or school district boundary or an ad-hoc, user defined area. Additionally, this dataset is available for direct use via one or more map services. More information about what a web mapping service is can be found at http://www.datafinder.org/services/ The specific map service and layer name for this dataset can be found by clicking the blue or green boxes under the map service column of the DataFinder Catalog at http://www.datafinder.org/catalog/ .
Online Linkage	Click here to download data. (See Ordering Instructions above for details.) By clicking here, you agree to the notice in "Distribution Liability" in Section 6 of this metadata.

Full Metadata

Watershed Management Organizations

Go to Section:
1. Identification Information
2. Data Quality Information
3. Spatial Data Organization Information
4. Spatial Reference Information
5. Entity and Attribute Information
6. Distribution Information
7. Metadata Reference Information


Section 1	Identification Information		Top of page
Originator	Bureau of Water and Soil Resources and Metropolitan Council
Title	Watershed Management Organizations
Abstract	This dataset depicts watershed district and watershed management organization boundaries within the seven county Twin Cities metropolitan area. The geography and some of the attributes were taken directly from the Minnesota Board of Water and Soil Resources (BWSR) state wide dataset in August of 2003. Additional attributes have been added to match the older Metropolitan Council WMO dataset, and additional data. A watershed district (WD) is a special governmental unit created through a local petition process to address any of a number of possible water management issues (e.g. flood control, stream channel improvements, water conservation, drainage system management, sediment control, riparian area management, water quality protection and enhancement, etc.). Minnesota Statute Chapter 103D governs the formation and operation of watershed districts. A watershed management organization (WMO) is defined as a watershed district wholly within the seven-county, Twin Cities Metropolitan Area or a joint powers entity established wholly or partly in the metropolitan area by special law or agreement to perform some or all of the functions of a watershed district. Minnesota Statute Chapter 103B governs the formation and operation of watershed management organizations. NOTES: - MANY BOUNDARY DISCREPANCIES EXIST WITH THIS DATA SET. See Lineage in Section 2 of this metadata for more details. - This layer is based on BWSR's most current information on watershed districts and WMOs in the State of MN. The dataset is NOT error free, and boundaries are frequently being updated and changed, so these should be used for reference only. It was last updated in August 2003. - Amendmends were made to the BWSR data upon consultation of several WMO plans and the Minnesota Association of Watershed Districts Guidebook ( http://www.bwsr.state.mn.us/publications/WDguidebkforweb.pdf) - Water planning is either the responsibility of a watershed district or a water management org. If neither of these exist, then responsibility falls onto the county. For a more precise boundary determination, check with the BWSR board conservationist for the area in question. - The Minnesota Board of Water and Soil Resources distributes a state wide WMO and WD dataset. The BWSR dataset is distributed on the DNR's Data Deli and can be found at http://deli.dnr.state.mn.us/metadata.html?id=L390002770201 - WMO boundaries that are coincident with county or municipal boundaries within this dataset do not match the county and municipal boundaries within the Metropolitan Council's County_ctu dataset.
Purpose	To be used only as a general reference for WMO boundaries. Many actual WMO boundaries are in dispute.
Time Period of Content Date	2004
Currentness Reference	Attribute data is up-to-date as of the end of 2004, but many unresolved issues exist with actual WMO boundaries. Attempts were made to update in June of 2008 using information from a number of online WMO plans and the Minnesota Association of Watershed Districts Guidebook. See the lineage for more detailed information.
Progress	Complete
Maintenance and Update Frequency	Irregular
Spatial Extent of Data	Twin Cities 7 County Metropolitan Area. This includes the counties of Anoka, Carver, Dakota, Hennepin, Ramsey, Scott and Washington in Minnesota.
Bounding Coordinates	-94.012 -92.732 45.415 44.471
Place Keywords	Twin Cities, Anoka County, Carver County, Dakota County, Hennepin County, Ramsey County, Scott County, Washington County
Theme Keywords	watershed districts, WMO, WMOs, watersheds, watershed management organizations, watershed management commissions, water resources, administrative boundaries
Theme Keyword Thesaurus	None
Access Constraints	None
Use Constraints	By acceptance of this data, the user agrees to include a copy of this metadata record, including the liability disclaimer, whenever the user transmits or provides the GIS Data (or any portion of it) to another user. We recommend that other interested parties download this dataset from the Data Finder web site (www.datafinder.org) to ensure that the most current data is obtained.
Contact Person Information	Craig Skone, GIS Senior Technician Metropolitan Council 390 Robert Street North St. Paul, Minnesota 55101-1805 Phone: 651.602.1328 FAX: 651.602.1674 E-mail: craig.skone@metc.state.mn.us
Browse Graphic	View a sample of the data.
Browse Graphic File Description	Sample map showing the wmo layer.
Associated Data Sets	Minnesota Board of Water and Soil Resources state wide WMO dataset http://deli.dnr.state.mn.us/metadata.html?id=L390002770201 Watersheds - Secondary http://www.datafinder.org/metadata/watersheds_2.htm

Section 2	Data Quality Information	Top of full metadata	Top of page
Attribute Accuracy	Attributes are thought to be accurate based upon available data, but many unresolved issues exist with actual WMO boundaries.
Logical Consistency
Completeness	Entire seven county geographic area is covered.
Horizontal Positional Accuracy	Unknown This dataset was not created in conjunction with county parcel boundary data. WMO boundaries that are coincident with county or municipal boundaries within this dataset do not match the county and municipal boundaries within the Metropolitan Council's County_ctu dataset.
Lineage	Watershed District and Management Areas: History of the WMO data sets: In 1995 LMIC digitized this data from boundaries that were hand-drawn by the Metropolitan Council on 7.5-minute topo hardcopy. The hand-drawn lines were derived from the watershed plans that came to the Council for review over a period of many years as a result of MN Chapter 509 legislation. There are many areas of potential boundary discrepancies which can be attributed to one of two factors: 1) real boundary discrepancies that resulted from delineations done at various times by various agencies or consultants with little or no coordination, or 2) interpretational errors. Boundaries presumably follow parcel lines, but this data set predates the availability of digital parcel information and has not been updated with any WMO attributes that might be contained within county parcel data. The data has been maintained here at BWSR since 1997. We have not attempted to resolve the boundary conflicts. We have periodically made changes and updates to the data by dissolving boundaries or editing attribute info as necessary. After consulting a number of online WMO plans in June 2008 (listed below) and the Minnesota Association of Watershed Districts Guidebook ( http://www.bwsr.state.mn.us/publications/WDguidebkforweb.pdf), many minor and a few major amendments were made to BWSR's. Plans consulted: - Ramsey-Washington Metro WD - Coon Creek WD - Rice Creek WD - Vadnais Lake Area WMO - Gun Club Lake WMO - Riley-Purgatory-Bluff Creek WD Actions taken: - Filled in many of the larger unorganized areas (“orphans” as BWSR calls them), assigning them to the appropriate adjacent WMO if and only if two (or more) adjacent plans were in agreement. - Assigned the Carver County portion of the Pioneer-Sarah WMO to Carver County, which took over as the planning authority for all areas of the county that were not already incorporated into legally binding watershed districts. - Merged the Carnelian-Marine WD, the Marine-on-St. Croix WMO and a large “orphan” area of NE Washington County to form the Carnelian-Marine-St. Croix WD.
Source Scale Denominator	24000

Section 3	Spatial Data Organization Information	Top of full metadata	Top of page
Native Data Set Environment	ArcInfo Version 9x
Geographic Reference for Tabular Data	None
Spatial Object Type	Vector
Vendor Specific Object Types	arcs, nodes, polygons, label points
Tiling Scheme	One layer for entire seven county region.

Section 4	Spatial Reference Information	Top of full metadata	Top of page
Horizontal Coordinate Scheme	UTM
Ellipsoid	GRS80
Horizontal Datum	NAD83
Horizontal Units	Meters
Distance Resolution
UTM Zone Number	15

Section 5	Entity and Attribute Information	Top of full metadata	Top of page

Entity and Attribute Overview

Polygon Attributes:   
(Attributes have been modified from the BWSR dataset for Metropolitan Council purposes) 
 
BWSR_NAME:  BWSR WMO name 
 
BWSR_TYPE:  BWSR WMO type.  Values are: 
               - WMO = watershed management organization 
               - COU = county 
               - WD  = watershed district 
 
ESTABLISH:  Date established (yyyymmdd) 
 
WMO_NAME:   WMO Name (primary label field) 
 
ORG_TYPE:   Organization type (primary display field).  Values are: 
               - Watershed Management Organization 
               - Watershed District 
               - County 
               - No claim or not organized 
 
AUTHORITY:  Planning authority 
 
AREA:       Polygon area in square meters. 
 
ACRES:      Polygon acreage. 
 
PRIM_CODE:  DNR primary watershed code 
 
MAJ_CODE:   DNR major watershed code 
  
PRIMARY:    Primary watershed name.  Values are: 
               - Cannon River 
               - Minnesota River - Shakopee 
               - Mississippi River - Rush-Vermillion 
               - Mississippi River - Twin Cities 
               - North Fork Crow River 
               - Rum River 
               - South Fork Crow River 
               - St. Croix - Stillwater

Entity and Attribute Detailed Citation	None

Section 6	Distribution Information	Top of full metadata	Top of page
Publisher	Metropolitan Council
Publication Date	Periodically revised
Contact Person Information	Mark Kotz GIS Database Administrator Metropolitan Council 390 Robert Street North St. Paul, Minnesota 55101-1805 Phone: 651.602.1644 FAX: 651.602.1674 E-mail: mark.kotz@metc.state.mn.us
Distributor's Data Set Identifier	wmo_a
Distribution Liability	NOTICE: The Geographic Information System (GIS) Data to which this notice is attached are made available pursuant to the Minnesota Government Data Practices Act (Minnesota Statutes Chapter 13). THE GIS DATA ARE PROVIDED TO YOU AS IS AND WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY AS TO THEIR PERFORMANCE, MERCHANTABILITY, OR FITNESS FOR ANY PARTICULAR PURPOSE. The GIS Data were developed by the Metropolitan Council for its own internal business purposes. The Metropolitan Council does not represent or warrant that the GIS Data or the data documentation are error-free, complete, current, or accurate. You are responsible for any consequences resulting from your use of the GIS Data or your reliance on the GIS Data. You should consult the data documentation for this particular GIS Data to determine the limitations of the GIS Data and the precision with which the GIS Data may depict distance, direction, location, or other geographic features. If you transmit or provide the GIS Data (or any portion of it) to another user, the GIS Data must include a copy of this disclaimer.
Transfer Format Name	Shapefile
Transfer Format Version Number	ArcGIS 9x
Transfer Size	0.5 MB for zip file.
Ordering Instructions	This dataset is distributed on the internet by clicking below after 'Online Linkage'. Doing so will tell your browser to download a 'ZIP' file which will contain the following: - ArcView shape files - metadata for the dataset (.htm) - NOTICE.RTF, an important notice about this dataset that can be read by any word processing software. This dataset can also be viewed and downloaded from the MetroGIS DataFinder Cafe at http://www.datafinder.org/cafe/ . The Cafe allows users to subset or clip datasets using an existing feature, such as a city or school district boundary or an ad-hoc, user defined area. Additionally, this dataset is available for direct use via one or more map services. More information about what a web mapping service is can be found at http://www.datafinder.org/services/ The specific map service and layer name for this dataset can be found by clicking the blue or green boxes under the map service column of the DataFinder Catalog at http://www.datafinder.org/catalog/ .
Online Linkage	Click here to download data. (See Ordering Instructions above for details.) By clicking here, you agree to the notice in "Distribution Liability" above.

Section 7	Metadata Reference Information	Top of full metadata	Top of page
Metadata Date	07/10/2008
Contact Person Information	Jessica Deegan, Sr GIS Tech Metropolitan Council 390 Robert Street North St. Paul, Minnesota 55101-1805 Phone: 651.602.1718 FAX: 651.602.1674 E-mail: jessica.deegan@metc.state.mn.us
Metadata Standard Name	Minnesota Geographic Metadata Guidelines
Metadata Standard Version	1.2
Metadata Standard Online Linkage	http://www.gis.state.mn.us/stds/metadata.htm

This page last updated: 07/10/2008