| OCR Text |
Show WATER RELATED LAND. USE IN THE UINTA HYDROLOGIC AREA The Uinta Hydrologic Area, located in northeastern Utah is one of 10 hydrologic study areas in the state. The preface maps show the location of the Uinta Hydrologic Area within Utah and the Green River subregion of the Upper Colorado River Basin. The purpose of this report is to present land use data for those portions of the Uinta Hydrologic Area that have a significant effect upon the water resources0 This data is shown in tables and on detailed maps. A brief text and a series of smaller scale maps showing water related features are also included as introductory material. The Utah Department of Natural Resources, Division of Water Resources ( formerly the Utah Water and Power Board) has been charged by the State Legislature with the responsibility of developing a State Water Plan which would coordinate and give direction to the activities of all state and federal agencies concerned with Utah's water resources. One of the first steps to accomplish this purpose was to divide the State into 10 natural drainage basins and then proceed to inventory and analyze the water resources within each basin. One of the major items to consider in such a study is the amount of water depleted from the basin through the processes of evaporation and transpiration0 To arrive at an estimate of this depletion, a knowledge of the kinds and extent of irrigated crops is needed along with a similar knowledge of vegetation which consumes water in addition to the natural precipitation that falls on it. The maps that were available at the beginning of this study did not contain the information that was needed to make an estimate of water deple- tionby evaporation and transpiration. Consequently, the Division of Water Resources authorized the preparation of water- related land use maps which would classify the uses of land in such a manner that depletion estimates could be calculated. The collecting of field data and reduction of the data to meaningful numbers was financially aided through a federal grant from the Urban Renewal Administration of the Housing and Home Finance Agency, under the Urban Assistance Program authorized by section 701 of the Housing Act of 1954, as amended. To prepare the water- related land use maps, vertical aerial photographs, obtained from the ASCS- USDA, were taken into the field and labeled to indicate the boundary and type of vegetation or water- related land use existing at the time of the survey. In most cases the observer was able to identify the crops from a viewing position near the roadway. After identifying the crops and labeling the photographs, the photographs were brought into the office and projected onto a base map. The crop boundaries were traced onto the base map and then planimetered or " dot- counted" to determine the acreage„ The acreage figure for each individual parcel within the land subdivision ( section, township, and range) was placed on punched cards and programmed through a digital computer to produce the summary table shown in this report. A separate table for each township and range was prepared showing the total land within each section and the amount of land used for each of the land use catergories in each section. The base maps containing the land use information were drawn at a scale of 1: 12000 ( 1 inch = 1000 feet) and have been photographically reproduced in this report at a scale of approximately 1: 26000. Each map covers 18 sections located either in the north 1/ 2 or south 1/ 2 of a given township and range. Copies of |
