Dr. Van Alstine has more than 30 years experience conducting a wide variety of groundwater resource and environmental investigations. He has designed and directed water quality assessments for surface and groundwater projects and investigations of point and non-point source pollution. He is a leader in assessing the impact changing land use has on water resources.

His environmental investigations in Minnesota, South Dakota, and North Dakota have employed a wide variety of technologies to determine changes in water quality over time, the impact of these changes on ecosystems, and the causes of these changes.

Dr. Van Alstine has been the project director and principal author of land and water resource assessment and management strategies prepared for 14 counties in western Minnesota and assisted in the development of plans for eight counties, about one-fourth of the non-metropolitan counties in the state, to inventory, assess, and understand the nature of their resources and to develop management strategies to protect their resource base. Dr. Van Alstine has also written a Comprehensive Watershed Management Plan for the Lac Qui Parle Yellow Bank Watershed District.