Today’s world faces numerous environmental challenges, which range from biodiversity loss to air and water pollution to climate change and its numerous effects. Research in environmental policy and management in SEES is squarely focused on addressing these challenges to help build a healthier, more sustainable world. SEES researchers in this area work to identify not just the causes and consequences of environmental challenges, but also ways to translate research into practice by testing environmental management approaches and analyzing and informing policy.

Our focus spans urban and rural environments, and ranges from local to national and international issues. SEES researchers, for example, work to understand how agriculture impacts water quality as well as how people bring about and are affected by these impacts with a goal of identifying ways policy and agricultural land management could be designed to benefit environmental quality and human health and well-being. Similarly, researchers in this area identify ways that Iowa’s urban and rural landscapes affect both people and biodiversity with an eye to designing these landscapes to enhance both biodiversity and people. Through this research, SEES faculty positively impact not just environmental quality, but the health and wellbeing of people in Iowa and beyond.