By Russell Shaffer and Kyle Martens
Kyle Martens has been exploring rural landscapes his entire life. Martens, originally from the Sioux City, Iowa, area and currently in his third year in the natural resource sciences doctoral program in the University of Nebraska–Lincoln’s School of Natural Resources, has incorporated his passion for rural communities into his research by creating an online survey to help explore and measure resilience in Nebraska’s Sandhills.
The Sandhills Resilience Survey aims to highlight the connection between perceptions of resilience and outside forces that impact reliance on agriculture and natural resources, specifically in the Sandhills. By measuring participants’ views and opinions on natural resources, the economy and their communities, resilience can be used to address current and future challenges in the region.
“I had an opportunity to work directly with ranchers over the past couple of years, tracking eastern redcedar expansion and targeting areas for tree removal,” Martens said. “When you spend enough time with people, it’s hard to not take an interest in their families, their livelihoods and the changes they’ve experienced just in the last few generations.”
Some of those changes are not simply situations like eastern redcedar’s spread into grasslands, which is an ever-present struggle, Martens said. He also referred to employment opportunities, health care and education availability, and the increasing pressure to develop energy infrastructure or the region’s water resources.
“By capturing local perspectives on resilience, Kyle's work will help inform strategies that strengthen not just agriculture and natural resources, but also the social and economic networks that sustain rural communities,” said Gwendŵr Meredith, an assistant professor in the School of Natural Resources and adviser on Martens’ dissertation committee. “This survey is a crucial step toward ensuring that the Sandhills remain a thriving and adaptable landscape for generations to come.”
Martins said when one factors in an aging population and a declining tax base, it puts a strain on communities to make rapid socioeconomic or environmental decisions.
That is where his work on resilience comes into play. As part of his research, Martens’ survey will measure the connectedness of community services, employment, local government and the area’s natural resources. This information can then be incorporated into strategic planning efforts, while being tested against a range of future challenges or disasters in the Sandhills.
“Resilience research is more than understanding how to overcome obstacles,” Martens said. “It helps identify and create new pathways that allow for communities to actively navigate change.”
A recent example Martens highlights is Nebraska’s meat processing sector. Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, the centralization of large processors helped increase efficiency while meeting the supply and demand of the market. The disruption brought on by the pandemic sent shockwaves to not only the processors, but interconnected agribusinesses, consumer goods and the labor market.
“Since that time, Nebraska has started to invest in smaller, more regional facilities, which creates an overlap in processing,” Martens said. “Having this redundancy is in part what can make the supply chain more resilient to future disruptions.”
Resilience research can have lasting impacts that extend beyond agriculture and natural resources, Martens said, including engineering, health care and economics. The growing recognition of how different sectors are interconnected is what makes these studies applicable to today’s society.
“By researching resilience, I think we can help communities develop networks and resources that allow them to not just cope with change now, but also adapt and build a stronger community in the future,” he said.
For more information or to access Martens’ survey, click here.