| What if there was a way to look into Iowa’s past, to see what kinds of
industries and operations were on a site 70 years ago |
24th St. & Grand Intersection
Ames, IA |
...to see where former buildings were located
...where quarries, city dumps, or petroleum tanks existed but are now gone?
Through an innovative project, designed to provide ease of access to the
public, it is now possible to "look back in time" through the Iowa Historic
Digital Aerial Photo Project. Using state-of-the-art computer
technology, Iowa State University and the Iowa Department of Natural
Resources have teamed up to collect, sort, and transfer historic aerial
photos into a digital format.
|  |
|
This web-based, publicly accessible, historic view of
Iowa from the late 1930s will be an invaluable tool for documenting Iowa’s
environmental and natural resource history. Land owners and managers,
developers, and planners often need to understand how a property was
previously used, in order to evaluate if past activities have
contributed to environmental contamination, changed the property’s
character, or otherwise impacted the site’s resources. Information
regarding past uses can be difficult to find. Property
abstracts, building permits, and maps often did not record the type of
land use that could have had environmental and natural resource impacts. The Iowa Historic Digital
Aerial Photo Project provides a new resource
to explore these past uses
and to ensure that
the valuable information on these photos will
be permanently preserved. |
Same Intersection
2002
|
How the Project
was Conducted
With funding provided by the United States Environmental Protection Agency, the Iowa
Department of Natural Resources (IDNR) initiated the collection and conversion
of 1930s aerial photos of Iowa into a digital form that can be used in a
Geographic Information System. The IDNR has partnered with the Iowa State
University Geographic Information Systems Support & Research Facility to collect
photos from the Iowa Department of Transportation archives and the University of
Iowa’s Map Library. When photos are not available, orders for copies are placed
with the National Archives. Once collected and cataloged, the photos are scanned
to convert them to a digital format. Finally, they are georectified, or aligned,
with their proper locations on the earth’s surface, by comparison with newer
aerial photos that already have assigned geographic locations.
Counties Available through
the Project
In the first two years of this "pilot" program, Iowa’s most populous counties, and those with the
most industrial and development history, as well as some counties with
agricultural and land use variety, were selected to be included in this 1930s
aerial photo collection. Hopefully, complete aerial photo coverage for Iowa from
the 1930s will be obtained through this pilot program. However, additional
funding and partnering with other agencies and associations will be necessary to
expand the project to include subsequent decades of photo coverage.
Where Did They Come From?
In 1933 Congress established the Agricultural Adjustment Administration, which conducted aerial
photo fly-overs of many states to assess crop compliance for entitlement
payments to farmers. The first statewide fly-over for Iowa was conducted through
this program in 1938. Periodically since then the U.S. Department of
Agriculture, and now the Farm Services Agency, have continued to conduct these
aerial photo surveys on a routine basis. Many of these historic aerial photos of
Iowa were shared among state agencies, with the National Archives retaining the
master photos. However, over time these photos had fallen into disuse and were
relatively unknown. There is no single, comprehensive, catalog of this unique
historical resource that is readily available to the public.
A Resource for Many Fields
of Study
Important natural resource and environmental changes between the 1930s and today can be documented
with the help of historic digital aerial photos. Better decisions on land-use
development and agricultural management can be made with the help of an
"historical perspective." Trends in land use and natural resource management can
be compared by noting changes like those shown and listed below.
Historical land use
Development changes
Agricultural practices
Soil and streambank erosion patterns
Conservation improvements
Changes in natural vegetation and habitat
Where to Access Photos
Iowa Department of Natural Resources Interactive Mapping Site
(Select Basic Map and Air Photography Viewer, input a scale of less than 1:40,000, turn on the Air
Photography (Historic) 1930s. At the top, there is
Quick Help for
Historic Air Photography 1930s. )
Natural Resources GIS Library
(Under County-wide Data,
select Data available by County, select a county from the dropdown box Select
County: by clicking on the arrow to display the counties, click the Get Data
button, click on 1930s airphotos 08 link. After downloading the aerial photo,
download the world file by clicking on the World button next to the file.)
Iowa State’s GIS Orthoserver
Project Partners:
US Environmental Protection Agency
Iowa Department of Natural Resources
Iowa State University GIS Facility
Support & Research Facility
Iowa Department of Transportation
University of Iowa Map Library |
