From the Corn Belt to the Gulf
From the Corn Belt to the Gulf

Author: Joan I Nassauer

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2010-09-30

Total Pages: 274

ISBN-13: 1136525351

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Nutrients from farms in the Mississippi River Basin are the leading cause of the Gulf of Mexico‘s 'Dead Zone,' a 5,000 to 7,000 square mile region where declining oxygen levels are threatening the survival of marine life. From the Corn Belt to the Gulf explores how new agricultural policy can help alleviate this problem, and at the same time improve water quality overall, enhance biodiversity, improve the quality of life for the people who live and work in Corn Belt communities, and relieve downstream flooding. The themes of the book are the far-reaching environmental impacts of Corn Belt agriculture, including associated economic and social effects at multiple spatial scales - and the potential for future agricultural policy to address those impacts through changes in agricultural landscapes and practices. We know that the environmental 'footprint' of Corn Belt agriculture extends beyond farmland and adjacent lakes and streams to groundwater, rivers, cities downstream, into the Gulf of Mexico, and, ultimately, to global oceanic and atmospheric systems. And we acknowledge that agricultural policies, including commodity support payments, have economic impacts at the national and international levels. Pressing negotiations with America‘s trade partners, along with increasing societal attention to both the costs and environmental effects of current agricultural policy, are creating momentum for policy change. From the Corn Belt to the Gulf presents innovative, integrated assessments of the agriculture and ecological systems in the Mississippi River Basin along with studies of local Iowa agricultural watersheds. Contributors from multiple academic and professional disciplines discuss how agricultural policies have contributed to current environmental conditions, and, in what the authors term 'alternative futures' for agricultural landscapes, envision how new policy can help achieve more beneficial patterns.

Saving America's Countryside
Saving America's Countryside

Author: Samuel N. Stokes

Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press

Published: 1997

Total Pages: 484

ISBN-13: 9780801855474

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"[These] stories—of stopping unwanted highways, protecting open space, finding financing to preserve historical buildings—make Saving America's Countryside an inspiring resource guide."—Utne Reader A new edition of the book that received the Historic Preservation Book Prize and the American Society for Landscape Architects' Honor Award Since publication of the first edition of Saving America's Countryside in 1989, the fight to save America's rural resources has met with much success. Approaches considered experimental just a decade ago—greenways and heritage areas, for example—are now widespread. Yet at the same time, such disquieting developments as continuing suburban sprawl, the weakening of federal laws, and the so-called property rights movement all suggest that work remains to be done. Saving America's Countryside was the first and is still the only comprehensive, step-by-step guide to protecting the natural, historic, scenic, and agricultural resources of a rural community. The authors show how to organize a conservation effort, inventory available resources, pass effective new laws, set up land trusts, take advantage of federal programs, and change public attitudes. The thoroughly revised and updated second edition reports on changes in conservation over the past eight years and adds a chapter on making economic development compatible with rural conservation. It includes new case studies, more than fifty new illustrations, and a section on heritage tourism. As in the previous edition, the detailed case studies document a variety of successful—and often surprisingly innovative—conservation efforts by residents of rural communities throughout the United States.