UAA professor Lil Alessa describes new tool connecting social values to landscapes

When it comes to landscape, Americans have long understood economic and resource extraction values. An area is valuable for the fish and fowl that can be harvested, or the minerals that can be extracted, or the food that can be grown there.

But how are social values in the landscape measured? If a community identifies a place as beautiful, as fun to be in, as comforting to the soul, how are those values incorporated into land management decisions?

The short answer is: They haven't been.

UAA's Resilience and Adaptive Management Group (RAM) has developed a new tool to do just that. Significantly, it is being adopted nationally to contribute to policy decisions.

In this short video, RAM's director, Lil Alessa, describes the social values weighted by her group's new tool, using the highly accessible Eagle River Nature Center as an example. She explains how this tool is being adopted for land management by the USGS, for risk assessment by NOAA, and potentially other agencies for community mental health planning.