Iowa's Online Fisheries Data Systems

Cooperative efforts in Iowa have allowed development of new fisheries databases that provide public access via the internet to various types of fishery data.  In conjunction with Aquatic GAP, the Iowa Rivers Information System was developed to store and serves interior stream fish community data to professionals and the public.  This was the first generation of web tools that were created to serve fish community data for Iowa.  Iowa has since embarked upon a second generation of web tools for stream fish data with its Water Web application, available at http://programs.iowadnr.gov/iowawaterweb/Map.aspx.  Collaborative efforts to keep these data systems current have been undertaken by fisheries staff and environmental protection staff in Iowa, who collect data according to matching protocols, store that data in a common data system, and supply the data to these online services.  Additionally, fisheries and environmental protection staff have worked in conjunction to link statewide lake water quality monitoring efforts, lake fishery data and other lake management information in online data systems, which are served to the public via the Water Web application, Lake Minireports http://limnoweb.eeob.iastate.edu/minireport/ and a fish reporting system (http://limnology.eeob.iastate.edu/lakereport/fishhome.aspx).  Further development of these systems is ongoing.