Silvia Secchi's website

Silvia Secchi

I am a Full Professor in the Department of Geographical and Sustainability Sciences as the University of Iowa. I am a natural resource economist by training, and my work typically involves many collaborators from other disciplines, it is externally funded by nonprofit organizations, Federal or State agencies, and it integrates economic, geographical, and environmental models.

Releasing rescue kesterls from Free Again by our pond

NEWS & UPCOMING EVENTS (* denotes graduate student)

A new paper first-authored by a graduate student working with me (open access):

Holland H.*, Bennett, D., & Secchi, S. 2020. Complying with conservation compliance? An assessment of recent evidence in the US Corn Belt. Environmental Research Letters in press https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ab8f60

Recent press:

The USDA Wants to Make Farms Climate-Friendly. Will It Work? Mother Jones/FERN

Regenerative agriculture needs a reckoning The Counter

Tom Vilsack for USDA? Expect more inaction on hunger, discrimination, pollution and rural decline Des Moines Register Opinion

The Approaching Climate Crisis: What EPA Rollbacks Mean For Water And Air Quality In The Midwest, Iowa Public Radio River to River

Report: Many Iowa counties underusing private well testing funds, The Gazette

Iowa's water quality strategy is not working. Here's what should be done instead. Des Moines Register Opinion (with Neil Hamilton, Matt Liebman, and Chris Jones)

Iowa Farmers Face Climate-Fueled Destruction, While the Industry Says it’s ‘Just Weather’, Civil Eats

Despite Resistance, Researchers Say Iowa Impacts Of WOTUS Are Limited, Iowa Public Radio

RECENT WORK

Secchi S. 2020. Response to Struckman – The political economy of unsustainable lock-ins in North American commodity agriculture: a path forward. “Political ecologies of inertia” Invited Commentary. Nordia Geographical Publications 49(5), 107–111. https://nordia.journal.fi/article/view/100176

Secchi, S., & McDonald, M. (2019). The state of water quality strategies in the Mississippi River Basin: Is cooperative federalism working? Science of the Total Environment, 677, 241-249. doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2019.04.381.