Aerial Photos and Topographic Maps

Use DNR’s Surface Water Data Viewer to get aerial photos, topographic maps, and measure distance from a field to nearby water bodies. To find your field or farm click on the Find Location tab towards the top of the screen. You are able to find the location you are looking for by entering the city or village, Township Range Section, County, etc. To help you find your farm or field click the Layers tab towards the top of the page. Click the check box next to the layers you would like to activate.

• The roads layer is in the Transportation Folder
• The rivers and streams layer is in the Inland Water Resources Folder
• The digital air photos and topographic maps are in the Imagery and Base Maps folder.

Once you have used the above layers to locate your farm or field you are ready to measure the distance to the nearest water-body.

Measuring Distances to the nearest water body – Click the Advanced Tools button at the upper right hand corner of the screen. A whole new set of operation buttons will show up to the left of the advanced tools button. The tool that enables you to measure distance is the 8th in from the right. It is a ruler shaped icon with 2 arrows facing away from each other on top if it with a ? in the middle of the arrows. Clicking this button will turn the mouse pointer from an arrow into a plus sign shaped object. Now you can click the mouse pointer on the edge of the field and then click on the closest perennial water-body to get your distance. A red line will appear between the 2 points you have chosen and the distance between the 2 points will be appear at the left of the map under the Latitude and Longitude coordinates. Click the clear points button underneath the distance to reset the measurement tool.