Background
In 2011, the Iowa Department of Natural Resources (DNR) commissioned the administration of four citizen-focused listening sessions, three rural and one urban, to gather input for the development of Iowa’s Nonpoint Source Management Plan. The resulting report, Water Quality Matters to Us All (Comito et al., 2011), detailed the listening session outcomes and represented the diverse understandings of water quality at the time. The report also explored how these voices could change the discourse about water quality and nonpoint source pollution in Iowa.
Water Quality Matters to Us All greatly informed the development of Iowa’s Nonpoint Source Management Plan, funded under Section 319 of the federal Clean Water Act, in 2011. It spotlighted the many challenges and complexities Iowa faced trying to get everyone to speak the same “language” and understand one another as various entities strove to improve water quality for future generations of Iowans. It also reinforced the need for all practitioners to better understand and address the human and sociological dimensions of solving water quality challenges. The report revealed that the solution to these challenges would require more than money and technology—it would require people to see themselves and their behaviors as an important part of the solution, and to work together to clean up Iowa’s waters.
Seeking Current Perspectives, Progress, and Leadership
A decade later, in 2021, the DNR determined that it was important to revisit the themes of that influential report to explore the extent to which the human and sociological dimensions of solving the state’s water quality challenges have changed. Iowa State University’s Conservation Learning Group, under the leadership of Dr. Jacqueline Comito, was contracted to conduct a statewide, multi-method evaluation project designed to explore current perceptions of water quality, shed light on the changing voices in conservation and water quality leadership, and gather input from Iowans in all walks of life.
A Decade of Change in Leadership and Literacy
Since the 2011 study, new leaders and influencers have taken over guidance of most of the major conservation and water quality stakeholder groups and agencies. In addition, through the efforts of many of these groups, there has been a significant increase in water quality literacy among all citizens—particularly the state’s younger citizens, who were not a part of the 2011 study.
References
Comito, J., Wolseth, J., & Morton, L.W. (2011). Water Quality Matters to Us All. Ames, Iowa: Iowa Learning Farms.
Iowa Learning Farms (2012). Community Assessments: Key Components to Successful Community‐Based Watershed Improvement Projects survey results.
Lade, G.E., Comito, J., Benning J., Kaiser, D., and Kling, C. (2022). The Iowa Rural Drinking Water Survey: Water Quality Perceptions and Avoidance Behaviors Among Rural Iowa Households. Center for Agriculture and Rural Development and Conservation Learning Group.
Morton, L.W. & Brown, S. (2007). Water Issues in Iowa: A Survey of Public Perceptions and Attitudes About Water, Technical Report SP 290. Ames, Iowa: Iowa State University Department of Sociology. A Heartland Regional Water Coordination Initiative USDA-NIFA publication.
Wittrock, J., Stephenson, A., Heiden, E.O., & Losch, M.E. (2015). Public Perceptions of Water Quality in Iowa: A Statewide Survey. Cedar Falls, Iowa: University of Northern Iowa. Center for Social and Behavioral Research,. An Iowa Department of Natural Resources publication.
