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People and Their Environments

People and Their Environments:
Social Science Supporting Natural Resource Management and Policy

[images] Five images, from left to right, A woman hugging a newly-planted evergreen shrub; A GIS (geographic information system) of urban tree canopy; A man checking a map on a fire information bulletin board; A proud angler holding up a big fish; People toting wheelbarrows at an urban ecological restoration site

As human populations increase in size, extent, and diversity, natural resource planners and policymakers must address growing concerns about a wide range of environments.  To make the best decisions – for people and for nature – they need information about how people and natural environments influence each other in rural and urban areas and everywhere in between. That is the focus of the People and Their Environments research unit.

Staffed with social scientists from a wide range of backgrounds, People and Their Environments is one of only a few Forest Service research work units that studies the human component of natural resource management. Our expertise ranges across the social science disciplines: economics, psychology, geography, sociology, and related fields like landscape architecture, recreation, and planning.

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Last Modified: 01/11/2012