Agency Fact Sheet, Department of Natural Resource, FY2004

This document produced by the Iowa Department of Administrative Services has been developed to provide a multitude of information about executive branch agencies/department on a single sheet of paper. The facts provides general information, contact information, workforce data, leave and benefits information and affirmative action data.

Iowa Natural Resources, Agency Performance Plan, FY2013

The work of the Department of Natural Resources impacts the lives of all Iowans. Iowans deserve a clean environment and quality natural areas for public use and enjoyment. This report reflects the progress made during fiscal year 2013 (FY13) toward our goals and provides information regarding the condition of our state’s natural resources and the effectiveness of our programs. In FY13, we continued to improve collaboration with other executive branch agencies. The DNR and DOT work very closely on the issuance of permits needed for road and bridge constructions, but recently we have also been working together to meet the administrative needs of the agencies. The DNR is working closely with the DOT to adopt an Electronic Records Management System used by the DOT. This system will improve accessibility to public documents and reduce the amount of paper files retained in storage. The DNR also continues to improve collaboration with other agencies, such as the Iowa Economic Development Authority as we work closely with them on business development in the state. The DNR strives to continually improve our customer service and how we can meet Iowan’s needs. As an example, the online reservation system for campground reservations has grown over the past eight years so that now 88% of the camping reservations are made online. The DNR continues to improve our online presence and accessibility. In FY13 the Iowa Legislature approved paying off the State’s bond debt used to construct Honey Creek Resort State Park. By removing this debt, the DNR will be able to focus more on the future of the Resort, rather than the past debt. Finally, in August of 2012, the DNR was faced with a tragic accident, where a seasonal parks employee died after rolling a mower into a lake. This incident has caused us to establish a Safety Program at the DNR and to review all of our departmental safety trainings, programs, and equipment. By focusing on our employee’s safety and well being, it is another way that we can demonstrate that at the DNR, our employees are our greatest asset.

Iowa Natural Resources, Agency Performance Plan, FY2014

The work of the Department of Natural Resources impacts the lives of all Iowans. Iowans deserve a clean environment and quality natural areas for public use and enjoyment. This report reflects the progress made during fiscal year 2014 (FY14) toward our goals and provides information regarding the condition of our state’s natural resources and the effectiveness of our programs.

Iowa Department of Naturals Resource Agency Performance Plan, FY2015, July 1, 2014

This report provides insight on accomplishments the department of Natural Resources have achieved in Fiscal Year 2015 as well as some challenges face in the not so distant future.

Conflict management as a means to the sustainable use of natural resources

Abstract

Optimal management of natural resources. Accounting for heterogeneity

Dynamic optimization methods have become increasingly important over the last years in economics. Within the dynamic optimization techniques employed, optimal control has emerged as the most powerful tool for the theoretical economic analysis. However, there is the need to advance further and take account that many dynamic economic processes are, in addition, dependent on some other parameter different than time. One can think of relaxing the assumption of a representative (homogeneous) agent in macro- and micro-economic applications allowing for heterogeneity among the agents. For instance, the optimal adaptation and diffusion of a new technology over time, may depend on the age of the person that adopted the new technology. Therefore, the economic models must take account of heterogeneity conditions within the dynamic framework. This thesis intends to accomplish two goals. The first goal is to analyze and revise existing environmental policies that focus on defining the optimal management of natural resources over time, by taking account of the heterogeneity of environmental conditions. Thus, the thesis makes a policy orientated contribution in the field of environmental policy by defining the necessary changes to transform an environmental policy based on the assumption of homogeneity into an environmental policy which takes account of heterogeneity. As a result the newly defined environmental policy will be more efficient and likely also politically more acceptable since it is tailored more specifically to the heterogeneous environmental conditions. Additionally to its policy orientated contribution, this thesis aims making a methodological contribution by applying a new optimization technique for solving problems where the control variables depend on two or more arguments --- the so-called two-stage solution approach ---, and by applying a numerical method --- the Escalator Boxcar Train Method --- for solving distributed optimal control problems, i.e., problems where the state variables, in addition to the control variables, depend on two or more arguments. Chapter 2 presents a theoretical framework to determine optimal resource allocation over time for the production of a good by heterogeneous producers, who generate a stock externalit and derives government policies to modify the behavior of competitive producers in order to achieve optimality. Chapter 3 illustrates the method in a more specific context, and integrates the aspects of quality and time, presenting a theoretical model that allows to determine the socially optimal outcome over time and space for the problem of waterlogging in irrigated agricultural production. Chapter 4 of this thesis concentrates on forestry resources and analyses the optimal selective-logging regime of a size-distributed forest.

Inventory and evaluation of natural resources for regional agricultural planning

Includes bibliography

Report on formulating public policies for the sustainable use of natural resources: the case of biofuels

Includes bibliography

Mountain watershed management in the development and conservation of natural resources

Includes bibliography

Ethnosciences - A step towards the integration of scientific and non-scientific forms of knowledge in the management of natural resources for the future

Integration of indigenous knowledge and ethnoscientific approaches into contemporary frameworks for conservation and sustainable management of natural resources will become increasingly important in policies on an international and national level. We set the scene on how this can be done by exploring the key conditions and dimensions of a dialogue between ‘ontologies’ and the roles, which ethnosciences could play in this process. First, the roles which ethnosciences in the context of sustainable development were analysed, placing emphasis on the implications arising when western sciences aspire to relate to indigenous forms of knowledge. Secondly, the contributions of ethnosciences to such an ‘inter-ontological dialogue’ were explored, based on an ethnoecological study of the encounter of sciences and indigenous knowledge in the Andes of Bolivia, and reviewed experiences from mangrove systems in Kenya, India and Sri Lanka, and from case-studies in other ecosystems world-wide.

Moving from sustainable management to sustainable governance of natural resources: The role of social learning processes in rural India, Bolivia and Mali

The present paper discusses a conceptual, methodological and practical framework within which the limitations of the conventional notion of natural resource management (NRM) can be overcome. NRM is understood as the application of scientific ecological knowledge to resource management. By including a consideration of the normative imperatives that arise from scientific ecological knowledge and submitting them to public scrutiny, ‘sustainable management of natural resources’ can be recontextualised as ‘sustainable governance of natural resources’. This in turn makes it possible to place the politically neutralising discourse of ‘management’ in a space for wider societal debate, in which the different actors involved can deliberate and negotiate the norms, rules and power relations related to natural resource use and sustainable development. The transformation of sustainable management into sustainable governance of natural resources can be conceptualised as a social learning process involving scientists, experts, politicians and local actors, and their corresponding scientific and non-scientific knowledges. The social learning process is the result of what Habermas has described as ‘communicative action’, in contrast to ‘strategic action’. Sustainable governance of natural resources thus requires a new space for communicative action aiming at shared, intersubjectively validated definitions of actual situations and the goals and means required for transforming current norms, rules and power relations in order to achieve sustainable development. Case studies from rural India, Bolivia and Mali explore the potentials and limitations for broadening communicative action through an intensification of social learning processes at the interface of local and external knowledge. Key factors that enable or hinder the transformation of sustainable management into sustainable governance of natural resources through social learning processes and communicative action are discussed.