Potentially Wet Histosols in Minnesota

The Potentially Wet Histosols in Minnesota was created by the MNDNR to display the extent of peatlands across the state using the best available data. For the purposes of this data, peatlands are defined as wet Histosols—the organic soil order that is characteristic of peatlands. The original Peat Inventory of Minnesota (https://gisdata.mn.gov/nl/dataset/geos-peat-inventory) was completed between 1979 and 1982, with additional sites described in 1992, 1994, 1995, 2001 and 2006. The original survey was limited to Koochiching, Aitkin, Beltrami, Lake of the Woods, and Southwestern St. Louis Counties. <br/>The Potentially Wet Histosols Map includes this original peatland dataset but provides a complete coverage of histosols across the entire state. The foundation of this dataset is the Gridded National Soil Survey Geographic Database (gNATSGO) Histosols [https://www.nrcs.usda.gov/resources/data-and-reports/gridded-national-soil-survey-geographic-database-gnatsgo], which is a complete coverage of the best available soils information (USDA-NRCS Soil & Plant Science Division). <br/>An intersect of the gNATSGO data and the National Wetlands Inventory [https://gisdata.mn.gov/dataset/water-nat-wetlands-inv-2009-2014] was performed to identify the Histosols that are also wetlands. <br/><br/>This product has no regulatory implications, nor is it intended for use in detecting change over time (e.g., peatland losses or gains). No new field surveys were conducted in the production of this data, which is a compilation of two primary datasets that incorporate both intensive and extensive field sampling over a span of decades.<br/>