SWCD River Corridor Project
Goals and Objectives
Our primary goal was to assist the Tippecanoe County Soil and Water Conservation District in increasing the engagement with their land easement program and provide greater clarity on key locations to target for their easement program. We aimed to revitalize the existing agricultural land easement program material that was being used by the Tippecanoe County Soil and Water Conservation District. The original USDA informational sheet provided too much information and may have contributed to the reduced engagement in recent years. Therefore, as a group, we concluded that creating a pamphlet and postcard that only highlighted 3 key topics would better resonate with landowners and increase engagement. We also wanted to provide the SWCD with an ArcGIS file that displayed the existing easement programs within a 1-mile buffer of local waterways. This would be used as an internal tool to determine key areas that may not be a part of an easement but should be a primary focus for future participation.
Community Project Partners
Robert Suseland from the Tippecanoe County Soil & Water Conservation District
Team Members
- Alexus Arvin
- Tucker Ensmenger
- Cormac Hall
- Naomi Michael
- Sabrina Parks
Summary
The GIS component of our deliverables is fully usable. The Soil Water Conservation District has full access to this map, and it can be edited anytime an easement is added or removed. The pamphlet and postcard need a few minor modifications to be fully usable. There is space left on the bottom of the pamphlet where company logos can be added. Dr. Prokopy explained in our meeting that deliverables sent to landowners will be more effective, so several more logos will need to be added to the bottom of the pamphlet. The pamphlet and postcard will also need to be professionally printed onto postcard/pamphlet paper before being mailed to landowners.
A caveat is it is difficult to get logos added to the pamphlet. Robert Suseland at the SWCD explained that he or another SWCD employee would need to reach out to other organizations to get approval to put their logo on the pamphlet, and this approval could take months.
A concern of this project was that it would not be able to be mailed out to landowners because of issues with the Purdue name being involved in a government item being sent out to landowners. However, this concern was addressed, and the pamphlet and postcard could be mailed to landowners as long as the Purdue name is not attached.
