Interior River Lowlands Ecoregion Profile and Land Use

USGS provides a summary report on the Interior River Lowlands ecoregion, covering 93,200 square kilometers across parts of Illinois, Indiana, Missouri, Kentucky, and Iowa. It describes the region's geology, historical agricultural land use, and its status as a major U.S. bituminous coal reserve. The report is based on sources from 2006 and 2007.

Use Cases

• Analyze land use patterns by mapping agricultural areas for feed grains, soybeans, and forage crops against soil deposit types like alluvium and outwash.
• Model the relationship between geomorphic characteristics, such as terraced valleys and lacustrine deposits, and historical land cover changes.
• Assess regional economic resources by correlating the location of the largest bituminous coal reserve with other land use data.
• Study urbanization drivers by examining changes in the ecoregion's boundaries and land cover classifications over time.

Strengths

• Covers a defined area of 93,200 square kilometers.
• Integrates specific geological and land-use data from cited agency reports (USEPA 2006, Varanka and Shaver 2007).

Limitations

• No raw data rows or columns are provided, only a summary report.
• Temporal coverage is limited to snapshot references from 2006-2007, with no continuous time series.
• Geographic scope is fixed to one ecoregion, limiting broader comparative analysis.

Provenance

Source

U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) summary based on U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and other scientific sources.

Collection Method

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Time Range

References data from 2006 and 2007.

Freshness

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Geography

Interior River Lowlands ecoregion in southern/western Illinois, southwest Indiana, east-central Missouri, and parts of northwest Kentucky and southeast Iowa.