Iowa DNR Interactive Mapping, Water Web Help Files

Navigating the Water Web Map by Water Feature Name:

The Water Web centers around the ability for web users to easily retrieve information about a specific water feature in Iowa. To zoom the interactive map to a specific lake, beach, or a future water feature (eventually streams, wetlands, and more will be incorporated) and retrieve all the information available on that feature, you need to use the Search tool, which is located above the Legend on the Water Web page.

With the Search tool, choose the water feature type from the dropdown next to the Select text. Following the For text, type in all or part of the water feature you are wanting to search on (this is not case sensitive). If you type the full name and a match is found, the map will zoom to that feature and data will be returned below the map. If you type in part of the name, you will have to pick from a list of possible matches before the map zooms and before data is returned. Look at the example below (chose Lake Name as the searchable water feature and "lake d" as the unique name of the lake):

Once the water feature (lake name, in this example) is found then the map will zoom in on that water feature. Following the example above, if Lake Darling is chosen from the returned matches, the map will zoom to the following image:

Below the map notice the returned results for the searched water feature. The data contained here is the center piece of the Water Web project. Below the map is a list of program databases that are directly related to the user-specified water feature. This list of programs will continue to grow as more and more databases are integrated into the Water Web project. At Phase 1, the available program data are: Beach Monitoring, Lake Management, and Water Quality Improvement Plan (TMDL). The user can choose all or just some of the available program data by selecting the checkboxes next to the program names. Look below for an example when choosing all available programs for Lake Darling:

After selecting the programs of interest for the unique water feature, select the Submit link, which is located below the program database names. A report-like datasheet will appear, giving you some physical characteristics on the water feature, maps of the water feature, and all the data available in the Iowa DNR Water Web program databases in a printable layout. For some programs, documents are even attached and can be viewed, downloaded, printed from this datasheet. To print the entire datasheet, go to the File - Print Preview menu in your browser, check to make sure the right margin is not cut off, adjust print margins if necessary, and send to your local printer. The datasheet is set up to print to letter-size portrait sheets of paper.

Back on the interactive map, adjacent to the list of program databases are links to external data sources related to the selected water feature. Linked data sources are those which are not fully integrated in to the Water Web database, like the program databases, but are relevant in providing an all-inclusive data experience for each user when they attempt to look at all Iowa DNR data available for each lake, beach, or other water feature. Eventually, some of the linked data sources will be integrated in to the Water Web database. Below is a list of the linked sources that show up when querying for Storm Lake:

If you select any of the links in the example above, a new web page will open and data will be returned to you related to the selected water feature. For example, if you choose the Watershed Atlas link, the Watershed Atlas interactive map will show up in a separate browser window, zoomed to the water feature (Storm Lake in this example). And if you choose the Link to Documents link then a new web page will appear with documents (mostly Adobe PDFs) that are associated with the particular water feature (Storm Lake in this example) existing in the Water Web Documents database.