The vast size of the United States and the extensive variation of its climate, topography, and biota across different regions contribute to both the richness of the nation’s natural heritage and the complexities involved in managing its resources. This new book from RFF Press presents readers with the most current thinking on:

• Recent approaches to the concept of sustainability
• The interrelatedness of ecosystem, economic, and social sustainability
• Resource sufficiency and functional integrity
• Weak versus strong sustainability
• America’s experience with sustainability in relation to forests, water, agricultural soils, and wildlife

Written to inform general audiences and students, the book includes assessments by some of the nation’s most renowned scholars in natural resource economics and policy. Highlighting the adaptability and resilience of resource systems, each chapter provides a description of the physical characteristics of the resource, a history of its use, a policy history, and a review of ongoing debates in management and policy. It concludes with an innovative treatment of biodiversity as a natural resource, looking at the ecological and economic meanings of biodiversity and current efforts to preserve biodiversity, especially through regulatory approaches.