To identify a major greenway corridor within the Northern Dakota County project area, Dakota County Soil and Water Conservation District (Dakota SWCD), Critical Connections Inc. (CCI), and Friends of the Mississippi River (FMR) analyzed the Dakota SWCD's Greenway Ranking methodology and dataset, developed in 2001 for the Dakota County Farmlands and Natural Areas Program.

The first step of the greenway alignment analysis was to determine the optimal ranking value for large high-priority natural areas that would form the backbone of the greenway system. The goal was to incorporate as many high quality natural areas as possible while excluding marginal lands and cultural landscape types from the major greenway framework. After several iterations, the optimal value to achieve this end was determined to have a total score of 80 or greater. Land cover polygons with a greenway value less than eighty were typically cultural vegetation, built up/impervious surfaces, or non-native dominant vegetation. Once identified, the largest of the natural areas were considered "greenway nodes" and the smaller, isolated natural land cover areas were considered "habitat islands".

The second step of the analysis involved determining "critical connections" or the shortest distance and least resistance to wildlife movement between habitat nodes and islands for identification of a primary greenway chain. Linear, shortest distances between nodes and islands were calculated and identified (right in red).

These shortest distances were then evaluated and modified individually to determine the best placement offering the least resistance to wildlife movement from one natural area to another. While the shortest distance from one area to another might be across a soccer field, the best path may be through the narrow tree line along the fields edge.

Finally, these modified shortest distance connections were buffered by 50 feet and merged with the habitat nodes and islands to form the proposed primary greenway corridor.

The third step of the analysis was to identify barriers to wildlife movement within the corridor. Shortest distance connections intersecting impervious surfaces like roads and cultural landscapes like ball fields were identified and categorized based on resistance to wildlife movement.

The final step in the analysis was to map potential optimal restoration communities within the corridor. By comparing factors such as slope, aspect, and soil conditions at existing native community sites within the corridor and then locating the same factoring conditions elsewhere within the corridor, optimal restoration communities were determined for potential restoration sites within the corridor that no longer possess native communities.

Final Products:
Northern Dakota County Greenway Map - 36x36 inches (PDF: 3,250kb)
Northern Dakota County Greenway Plan (PDF: 2,166kb/39pages)