Wetlands is an indicator of the Midwest Landscape Initiative’s (MLI) 2023 Midwest Conservation Blueprint. The Blueprint is a basemap of priority lands and waters for conservation across the Midwest consisting of over 20 social and environmental values representing diverse interests across society. This indicator was chosen as a targetable, important feature of the MLI goals that will be used to track conditions over time and prioritize areas for conservation. Indicators were defined through elicitation and prioritization exercises with federal and state participants. Criteria for the indicators includes 1) actionable, 2) measurable, 3) relevant to multiple groups across the region, and/or 4) representative of other social and/or environmental values. This indicator identifies the availability of wetland habitat within the Midwest Landscape. It prioritizes areas based on whether a pixel can be classified as a wetland. This indicator originates from U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s National Wetlands Inventory (NWI). To create this layer, MLI partners, members, and staff completed the following mapping steps: projected all input data to NAD83 (2011) UTM Zone 15N, selected all wetland types other than “riverine” and “lakes,” converted the selected polygons into a 30m raster, and reclassified the raster into two classes: 0 – Not a wetland, 1 - Wetland. Highly altered areas were removed using the Highly Altered Areas mask. For full mapping details, please refer to the Midwest Conservation Blueprint 2023 Development Process document.
