Spring 2024

The economics and social connections to environmental systems and their problems offers an important insight into the use, misuse, and overuse of natural resources. This course examines economic theory, concepts, and decision-making tools for real-world problems and possible solutions. The course is intended for students studying natural resources, environmental science, social sciences, public policy, public administration, and other disciplines interested in this perspective. Descriptive, graphical, and elementary quantitative methods will be used throughout the course.

Use of aircraft and satellite imagery for monitoring landforms, soils, vegetation and land use, with the focus on problems of land-use planning, resource management and related topics.

Resource policy formation; ethics of resource use; administration and organization for resource management; analysis of present policy and trends.

This course focuses on economic methods for designing and evaluating water, food and environmental policies. Topics include optimizing water as an input in producing food, energy, recreation, and other ecosystem services; water & environmental issues in food production; pricing and conservation incentives; managing shortage risks; and economic tools for addressing conflicts over water, food and the environment. Interactive seminar style course. Calculus proficiency is required.

Explores the use of geographic information systems (GIS) as a tool for natural resource and environmental managers. Topics include spatial autocorrelation, interpolation techniques, and model integration. Examines sources of error and possible ramifications.

This course teaches students the process of environmental planning in U.S. cities through the development of environmental action plans. Students will choose cities of their choice and collect real-world data to establish baseline conditions across several environmental dimensions. Small group discussions and activities will help student develop and refine urban planning strategies to better manage environmental resources in cities.

Rapid changes to Earth's biosphere will influence how natural and managed ecosystems function and alter the services they provide. Issues from conservation biology to sustainability and global climate change rely on a comprehensive understanding of ecosystem processes. In this class, students will learn the principles of terrestrial ecosystem ecology, examining the influence of biological, ecological, and physical processes on energy and material flows and water and elemental (carbon, nitrogen, phosphorous) cycling in ecosystems. Graduate level requirements include an additional project and leading class discussions.

This course will introduce the concepts and techniques used in the growing field of human use management in outdoor recreation settings. The focus is on the sociological dimensions of the recreation experience and an understanding of the principles, practices, and dilemmas of outdoor recreation management in natural areas.

This course is a survey of basic issues and concepts in natural resource management and the environment in Native communities using integrated case studies that survey all the major varieties of environmental issues in Indian Country in the 21st century. A central theme will be developing tribally-specific solutions to rebuilding the resiliency of degraded ecosystems. We will consider particular case studies such as: tribal sovereignty, land tenure, reserved rights and Native claims; Native knowledge systems and Western science; co-management and restoration; water; fish and wildlife; agriculture and rangeland management; energy, mining and nuclear waste; and global climate change.

Examines various areas of advanced GIS applications such as dynamic segmentation, surface modeling, spatial statistics, and network modeling. The use of high performance workstations will be emphasized.