Urban and Community Conservation

NACD's mission is to serve conservation districts by providing national leadership and a unified voice for natural resource conservation.

Across America, rural landscapes are becoming more urban. A Brookings Institution study of 281 metropolitan areas showed that the amount of urbanized land in the United States increased by 47 percent in just 15 years. Urban areas grew from 51 million acres to 76 million acres from 1982 to 1997, while the population in these areas grew by 17 percent, according to the institution's Center on Urban and Metropolitan Policy.

Conservation districts, which historically have been active in soil and water conservation on farmlands and forests, are increasingly involved in resource management issues in urban, suburban and developing areas. These web pages are a resource for conservation districts addressing urban and community conservation issues. They highlight resource concerns, how districts have been involved in addressing them and resources available at the national level.

District representatives and partners are encouraged to share challenges, successes, projects and resources so we can continue to build on this web site. Your input helps make this resource more useful and inspiring. Please contact Debra Bogar, NACD, at Deb-Bogar@nacdnet.org with your suggestions and requests.

To submit your district’s story(ies) in one or more of the areas listed under the Conservation Issues link, download and fill in the MS Word form at IssueSubmittal.doc, and send it to Deb-Bogar@nacdnet.org or send us a link to an existing web page with your story.