Private lands constitute roughly 72 percent of 2.27 billion acres of lands in the United States, and provide critical ecosystem services. Understanding private landowners’ decision making about the use and management of private lands and their related natural resources is critically important for maximizing their ecosystem services. This panel will discuss a broad range of the social and psychological factors that influence individuals’ conservation behaviors/practices on private lands in both rural and urban landscapes. In agricultural settings, for example, concerns about water use efficiency, nutrient management, and long-term productivity in soils are not only significant for farmers to maintain a healthy productive land-base, but have significant implications for regional water quality/quantity and climate change. Similarly, in urban settings, issues such as non-point source pollution, stormwater runoff, wetlands conservation, degraded shorelines and riparian areas, invasive/endangered species, and the decline of greenspace connectivity for biodiversity conservation, are closely related to private landowners’ routine behaviors and their chosen practices. This session explores the social-psychological factors that influence individuals’ various behaviors and management practices that have both local and regional natural resources impacts. The discussion aims to facilitate interdisciplinary communication among various researchers and practitioners on a broad range of conservation adoption and decision making topics for the purpose of bridging science-policy gaps and increasing the impact of outreach and messaging strategies aimed at private landowners.