Like many, I am sure, I have found myself chasing many different websites and hardcopy sources to find relevant paddling information about rivers in Iowa. I intend for this website to be a directory for all rivers in Iowa. It will perpetually be a work in progress. It has been started with an Airtable I have designed with mostly information from the National Hydrography Dataset (NHD) put out by the United States Geological Survey (USGS). All tributary rivers that have names related to a larger river have been noted in the notes section. Also in the notes section is what a given river flows into. The initial focus was to log all waterways in Iowa labeled as a river. Also included thus far are a few waterways labeled as creeks in the vicinity of Grinnell College. Next steps in the project will be to complete the information in the “In State Miles” column and to produce a link to a page for each river that will include relevant information including navigable flow rates, access points, outfitters, river specific orgs, shuttles, maps, links, and other resources. If you have suggestions for helpful information or to improve the design of the page to make it more user-friendly please don’t hesitate to contact me.
I owe acknowledgement first and foremost to Andy Asell, Environmental GIS Specialist at the Iowa Department of Natural Resources, for initial direction to get the best source for accurate river mileage and accurate mapping information through the Iowa State GIS Lab. I also want to express gratitude to Tierney Steelberg, Digital Liberal Arts Specialist, and Morris Pelzel, Director of Academic Technology, of the Digital Liberal Arts Collaborative at Grinnell College for direction in selection and design of digital display of the information I am presenting on these pages. Any lack of user-friendliness is solely a result of my stubborness or lack of effort and not for their lack of direction! I am also thankful to former Recreation Assistant at Grinnell College, Maria Eure’s, support in being a shuttle for some of the early research trips that went into gathering this information.
Tim Hammond, Associate Dean for Health and Wellness and Director of Student Health Promotion, Grinnell College, hammondt@grinnell.edu