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Environment of Iowa Iowa's natural vegetation is tallgrass prairie and savanna in upland areas, with dense forest and wetlands in floodplains and protected river valleys, and pothole wetlands in northern prairie areas. Most of Iowa is used for agriculture, crops cover 60% of the state, grasslands (mostly pasture and hay with some prairie and wetland) cover 30%, and forests cover 7%; urban areas and water cover another 1% each.The explosion in the number of high-density livestock facilities in Iowa has led to increased risk of rural water contamination and a perceived decline in air quality. Other factors negatively affecting Iowa's environment include the extensive use of older coal-fired power plants, fertilizer and pesticide runoff from crop production, and diminishment of the Jordan Aquifer. There is a dearth of natural areas in Iowa; less than 1% of the tallgrass prairie that once covered most of Iowa remain intact, only about 5% of the state's prairie pothole wetlands remain, and most of the original forest has been lost. Iowa ranks 49th of U.S. states in public land holdings. Threatened or endangered animals in Iowa include the Bald Eagle, Interior Least Tern, Piping Plover, Indiana Bat, Pallid Sturgeon, the Iowa Pleistocene Land Snail, Higgins' Eye Pearly Mussel, and the Topeka Shiner. Endangered or threatened plants include Western Prairie Fringed Orchid, Eastern Prairie Fringed Orchid, Mead's Milkweed, Prairie Bush Clover, and Northern Wild Monkshood. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/ |
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