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The goal of our Environment
and Natural Resources program is to improve decisions that affect natural
resources and the environment.
We conduct research,
teaching, and extension/outreach in the following general areas:
- natural resource
and environmental economics
- sociology
- law and planning
Our efforts strive
to provide information and tools to understand the societal forces shaping
choices about the natural environment, measure the impacts of environmental
change on economic and social welfare, and to design and evaluate environmental
projects and policies.
Major foci of research
in the department are the agricultural and environmental interface, land
use, water resources, and global environmental and economic change. These
problem areas are of large and growing importance and are ones in which
we have significant experience and expertise. We also conduct research
on advancing methods used in economic and sociological research on natural
resources and the environment, and to develop innovative approaches to
environmental protection and resource management.
Extension programs
offered in the department focus on animal waste policies, rural-urban
interface issues, and land use issues. Extension programs are currently
focused on non-point source pollution from agriculture, specifically nutrients
from animal agriculture, rural-urban interface issues, land use, including
farmland preservation, and water quality. Numerous opportunities exist
to expand these programs to address the information needs of decision-makers
on emerging natural resource and environmental issues within the state.
Our undergraduate
teaching focuses on the Environmental and Renewable Resource Economics
(ERRE) major, along with offering service courses required by the Environmental
Resource Management (ERM) major.
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