Research
Broadly speaking, my research can be separated into two interrelated areas. First, I use qualitative methods, like interviews and document analysis, to understand how people view conservation policy and governance. Second, I use quantitative methods (mainly geographic information systems) to understand the impact that these policy or practices have on the landscape. Both serve my overarching research goal of evaluating and improving conservation policy and governance. Below are brief summaries of the my current/previous research projects.
Private Land Conservation
There is an increasing need for private land conservation to meet local, regional, and global conservation goals. Because of this, there has been a significant investment by government and non-governmental agencies to expand conservation on private land. However, there are many critical gaps in the literature that remain. My ongoing research investigates the role that private conservation plays in creating sustainable landscapes. More specifically, this area of my research investigates the socio-economic factors that influence their spatial distribution and their role in landscape change.
Freshwater Governance
Impactful governance can be difficult to achieve for a variety of social-ecological reasons. This research seeks to understand how conservation stakeholders view the governance systems they work in. Through my research at Iowa Great Lakes, I gain a better understanding of the eclectic set of environmental issues these stakeholders face and the complex social network they must navigate to mitigate them. This research is currently under review.
Conservation Compliance on HEL
Most of the US agricultural conservation policies are voluntary. They pay for farmers to temporarily retire land or for best management practices on working land. Research has demonstrated that voluntary policies are impacted by changes in commodity prices. Our research examines how conservation compliance, the lone mandatory policy, is impacted by changing corn prices. We identify a relationship between conservation compliance and corn prices during the years 2006-2019. This research was published in Environmental Research Letters in 2020. Link to publication here.
Stakeholder Perceptions of Prairie Restoration
Prairie ecosystems provide numerous ecosystem services, but conflict with local stakeholders can impede restoration of these systems. Using Nachusa Grasslands in Illinois as a case study, I interviewed both community and restoration stakeholders about their views of prairie restoration. Specifically, participants were asked about the benefits, risks, and barriers to success they associate with ecological restoration. Some of the results were published in the Illinois Geographer (Print only). Feel free to email me for a PDF copy of the manuscript.
