The Minnesota Valley Wetland Management District is a fourteen-county district located in east central Minnesota

Minnesota

Minnesota is a U.S. state located in the Midwestern United States. The twelfth largest state of the U.S., it is the twenty-first most populous, with 5.3 million residents. Minnesota was carved out of the eastern half of the Minnesota Territory and admitted to the Union as the thirty-second state...

. It includes portions of the Minnesota

Minnesota River

The Minnesota River is a tributary of the Mississippi River, approximately 332 miles long, in the U.S. state of Minnesota. It drains a watershed of nearly , in Minnesota and about in South Dakota and Iowa....

, Cannon, and Mississippi River

Mississippi River

The Mississippi River is the largest river system in North America. Flowing entirely in the United States, this river rises in western Minnesota and meanders slowly southwards for to the Mississippi River Delta at the Gulf of Mexico. With its many tributaries, the Mississippi's watershed drains...

 watersheds

Drainage basin

A drainage basin is an extent or an area of land where surface water from rain and melting snow or ice converges to a single point, usually the exit of the basin, where the waters join another waterbody, such as a river, lake, reservoir, estuary, wetland, sea, or ocean...

.

The United States Fish and Wildlife Service

United States Fish and Wildlife Service

The United States Fish and Wildlife Service is a federal government agency within the United States Department of the Interior dedicated to the management of fish, wildlife, and natural habitats...

 works to protect the area's natural landscape through private lands habitat restorations, acquisition of waterfowl

Waterfowl

Waterfowl are certain wildfowl of the order Anseriformes, especially members of the family Anatidae, which includes ducks, geese, and swans....

 production areas (WPAs), and management of FmHA conservation easements. Since 1990, the Service has acquired 4255 acres (17.2 km²) of WPAs and approximately 1898 acres (7.7 km²). Private land restoration projects total 7011 acres (28.4 km²) of wetland

Wetland

A wetland is an area of land whose soil is saturated with water either permanently or seasonally. Wetlands are categorised by their characteristic vegetation, which is adapted to these unique soil conditions....

in 1,227 basins and 4849 acres (19.6 km²) of native prairie on 223 sites.