This week, economic specialists from the University of Nevada, Reno met with the Esmeralda County Commission to introduce the Nevada Economic Assessment Project.
This project is led by Community Economic Development Specialists Buddy Borden and Dr. Tom Harris, of the UNR Extension and the University Center for Economic Development.
The project focuses on providing Nevada’s counties, state and federal agencies, and their partners with quantitative and qualitative baseline data and analyses in order to better understand each county’s demographic, social, economic, fiscal, and environmental characteristics, trends and impacts.
“Locating reliable quantitative socioeconomic data has long been a challenge for many Nevada rural counties,” Borden said in a news release Monday. “The overall goal of (the Nevada Economic Assessment Project) is to develop and maintain a comprehensive database and set of county analytical tools that are useful for Nevadans working on a variety of issues relating to economic development, community planning, and impact assessments.”
Currently, the project is underway in Lincoln, Humboldt, Elko, Nye, and now Esmeralda county.
In Esmeralda, over the next five months, the Nevada Economic Assessment Project team will collect relevant baseline data, conduct analyses, produce a series of technical reports and fact sheets, develop county economic impact assessment models and host community workshops presenting newly-created tools and mapping assets throughout Esmeralda County.
The Nevada Economic Assessment Project’s contributing partners include the University of Nevada, Reno Extension; University of Nevada, Reno College of Agriculture, Biotechnology &Natural Resources; Bureau of Land Management; U.S. Forest Service; Nevada Association of Counties; U.S. Department of Agriculture, Rural Development and the University Center for Economic Development.