Don McLeod appointed to temporary
national position
By
Vicki Hamende, Senior Editor
Office
of Communications and Technology
JUNE
2003 AGADEMICS
Associate Professor Don McLeod of the Department of
Agricultural and Applied Economics has been appointed to the
Economic and Community Systems unit of the Cooperative State
Research, Education, and Extension Service of the U.S. Department of
Agriculture as a national program leader for natural resource and
environmental economics.
McLeod will work from June through December in
Washington, D.C., helping to provide leadership in developing
strategies, program information, and resources to foster innovative
approaches for tackling issues involving resources, the environment,
land use, land stewardship, and the rural/urban interface that
affects communities across the nation.
“I’ll be bridging the gap between people who deliver
programs and people who do research,” McLeod explains. “I’ll develop
a work program that helps to make that connection and can be built
upon by subsequent specialists.”
The agricultural economist says he will be collaborating
with diverse federal agencies and private sector organizations that
have an interest in rural economic development, with agricultural
and natural resources conservationists, with program leaders, and
with other partners in the land-grant university system.
McLeod describes his upcoming leadership role as a
departure from the teaching and research he has been involved in at
the College of Agriculture for the last eight years. He says he is
flattered that his work and that of his colleagues in both his
department and in the Ruckelshaus Institute of Environment and
Natural Resources is being nationally recognized through his
nomination and appointment.
“My personal goal is to better understand how policy is
made and how programs are developed and administered at the federal
level,” McLeod says. “I’m interested in knowing how USDA articulates
or communicates with the land-grant university system through
research, education, and cooperative extension. I’d like to see what
opportunities there are for the university and particularly
agricultural and applied economics to work on funded projects
jointly with federal agencies.”
McLeod also sees his appointment as a chance for people at the
national level to see what the University of Wyoming can do to
provide regional cooperation and input into ongoing
projects.
Current Projects Dr. McLeod has two multi-faceted land use projects taking
place. The first concerns future uses and community
preferences for rural land use in Sheridan & Uinta Counties,
Wyoming. This involves visioning activities as well as
surveying of a large sample of county landowners and/or
residents. It also involves use of Geographic Information
Systems (GIS) data to develop valued attributes of a statewide
land valuation (hedonic price) model. Lastly efforts are
ongoing to assess the Cost of Development, such as additional
infrastructure and services that rural counties must bear due
to changes in land use from open space to rural residential
development. A similar project is ongoing in Moffat County,
Colorado. Both projects are funded by USDA’s National Research
Initiative Competitive Grants Program for Rural Development. Dr. McLeod is also
undertaking a project examining irrigation practices in the
Laramie Plains looking at impacts on local wetlands and
downstream wildlife habitat. This effort involves analyzing
enterprise budgets to find water savings for Platte River
wildlife species needs while understanding the connection
between wetlands and flood irrigation in the Laramie Plains.
He also has helped to conduct a comparison of Bureau of Land
Management recreational use and expenditure data with other
sources to understand methods used for collection and to
uncover any data anomalies. Dr. McLeod is initiating a scenic
view preference survey using Wyoming landscapes. This work
entails eliciting viewer preferences for a variety of Wyoming
landscapes. Outcomes may be used to calibrate view variables
in land value (hedonic price) models of agricultural lands.
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