Prevention versus Treatment under Precautionary Regulation: A Case Study of Groundwater Contamination under Uncertainty

Policy discussions on agricultural pollution problems characterize prevention as more cost effective and precautionary than ex post treatment. We derive conditions under which treatment alone is more cost effective in situations involving multiple sources of emissions, multiple sites affected, and a commonly used precautionary approach to uncertainty. We also show that a greater degree of precaution can result in less reliance on prevention. An empirical case study indicates that treatment alone is the most cost-effective means of dealing with nitrate in most Maryland community water system wells. The use of leaching prevention measures is restricted to the most intensive poultry producing areas. The incremental cost of precaution is substantial.     

Differences in Social and Public Risk Perceptions and Conflicting Impacts on Point/Nonpoint Trading Ratios

If stochastic nonpoint pollution loads create socially costly risk, then an economically optimal point/nonpoint trading ratio—the rate point source controls trade for nonpoint controls—is adjusted downward (a risk reward for nonpoint controls), encouraging more nonpoint controls. However, in actual trading programs, ratios are adjusted upward in response to nonpoint uncertainties (a risk premium for nonpoint controls). This contradiction is explained using a public choice model in which regulators focus on encouraging abatement instead of reducing damages. The result is a divergence of public and social risk perceptions, and a trading market that encourages economically suboptimal nonpoint controls.     

Protecting Watershed Ecosystems through Targeted Local Land Use Policies

Land use change is the most pervasive force driving the degradation of watershed ecosystems. This article combines an econometric model of land use choice with models of watershed health indicators to examine the effects of land use policies on watershed ecosystems through their effect on land use. Our results suggest that incentive-based land use policies and property acquisition programs can have relatively large positive impacts on watershed health, while policies that change the returns to land use are less effective. The results suggest that there is potential for targeting these policies because their impacts vary across watersheds with different land use mixes.     

Managing increasing environmental risks through agrobiodiversity and agrienvironmental policies

Agrobiodiversity can provide natural insurance to risk‐averse farmers by reducing the variance of crop yield, and to society at large by reducing the uncertainty in the provision of public‐good ecosystem services, for example, CO₂ storage. We analyze the choice of agrobiodiversity by risk‐averse farmers who have access to financial insurance, and study the implications for agrienvironmental policy design when on‐farm agrobiodiversity generates a positive risk externality. While increasing environmental risk leads private farmers to increase their level of on‐farm agrobiodiversity, the level of agrobiodiversity in the laissez‐faire equilibrium remains inefficiently low. We show how either one of the two agrienvironmental policy instruments can cure this risk‐related market failure: an ex ante Pigouvian subsidy on on‐farm agrobiodiversity and an ex post payment‐by‐result for the actual provision of public environmental benefits. In the absence of regulation, welfare may increase rather than decrease with increasing environmental risk, if the agroecosystem is characterized by a high natural insurance function, low costs, and large external benefits of agrobiodiversity.     

Evaluating off‐site environmental mitigation using choice modelling*

Evaluation of off‐site mitigation entails comparison of utility changes between two sites. Choice modelling has been used to identify community willingness to trade‐off attributes for two different types of stream in New Zealand. Estimated utility functions are used to derive marginal rates of substitution and stream attribute part worths which can be used to design or evaluate both on‐site and off‐site mitigation policy. Latent class multinomial logit models identified classes of citizens who valued stream attributes quite differently. Significant differences in values for some attributes on different stream types imply heterogeneous mitigation ratios across environmental attributes.     

A response to Doole and Marsh () article: methodological limitations in the evaluation of policies to reduce nitrate leaching from New Zealand agriculture

A recent paper by Doole and Marsh (2013), questioned the validity of using the New Zealand Forest and Agriculture Regional Model (NZFARM) for New Zealand agri‐environmental policy analysis. We respond to their critique by clearly describing the model structure, explaining the NZFARM parameterisation, calibration, and validation procedure, and presenting estimates from a series of nutrient reduction policy scenarios to highlight the utility of the model. In doing so, we demonstrate that NZFARM generates logical and intuitive results that can be used for robust agri‐environmental policy decision‐making.     

Methodological limitations in the evaluation of policies to reduce nitrate leaching from New Zealand agriculture

The land‐use optimisation framework, NZFARM, has been promoted as a tool that can be used to assess the economic and environmental impacts of policy on regional land use. This paper outlines how methodological limitations presently restrict its capacity to provide meaningful insight into the relative value of alternative land‐use configurations. The model is calibrated using positive mathematical programming, which has been shown in the literature to result in models that yield arbitrary output outside of the calibrated baseline. There is a high likelihood that this is the case, as no validation appears to have been carried out. Significant model development will be required before NZFARM outputs can be used with any confidence to inform future policy development. We conclude with suggestions on how NZFARM and models of its kind can be further developed to improve their capacity for meaningful simulation.     

Evaluating Input Standards for Non‐Point Pollution Control under Firm Heterogeneity

The efficacy and cost of input standards for reducing nitrate pollution from New Zealand dairy production are evaluated. In contrast to previous studies, firm heterogeneity is explicitly considered through the novel integration of efficient techniques for the calibration and decomposition of large optimisation models. Nitrogen fertiliser application should not be targeted by policy given its minor role in determining emissions. In contrast, livestock intensity is an appropriate base for regulation given its strong correlation with pollutant load. Abatement cost increases as stocking rate declines, but this can be offset at low levels of regulation through utilising slack feed resources to improve per‐cow milk production. Both uniform and differentiated input standards based on livestock intensity achieve substantial decreases in pollutant load at moderate cost. However, because of disparity in the slopes of abatement cost curves across firms, a differentiated policy is more cost‐effective at the levels of regulation required to achieve key societal goals for improved water quality.     

Does complex hydrology require complex water quality policy?

Nonpoint‐source water pollution is frequently considered intractable because it is hard to regulate large numbers of small sources and because the science associated with assessing the impact of each source is complex. New Zealand has demonstrated that it is possible to implement a simple cap‐and‐trade system to help reduce nitrogen leaching from many small farms and thereby protect water quality. This paper relates to the second challenge: are complex regulatory systems worthwhile when nitrogen delivery is complex? When nitrogen moves through groundwater to a lake, leaching from different farms reaches the lake at different times and the damage caused is temporally differentiated. Policy that regulates farmers according to the timing of their nitrogen delivery will be more complex than policy that does not. Whether the gain in efficiency justifies this additional complexity can be assessed through modelling. We use an integrated model to estimate the gains from complex nitrogen regulation that incorporates groundwater delivery times relative to simple nitrogen regulation that does not. We find that the gains from more complex regulation are small in the catchment we study and cannot justify the additional complexity required. A sensitivity analysis enables us to identify the types of catchments where complex regulation may be worthwhile.     

国家级节水政策的量化评价及优化路径探析

基于PMC指数模型和文本挖掘技术构建节水政策评价体系,对我国6项典型国家级节水政策进行量化评价。结果表明,现行的国家级节水政策整体设计优秀,有一项政策评级达到完美,3项政策评级为优秀,2项政策评级为良好。我国节水政策在政策功能、持续效力、作用层面和市场机制4个方面仍存在可改进之处。在此基础上对节水政策提出充分发挥政策功能、推动权责向基层下沉、加快完善市场机制、有机结合长中短期规划4项优化建议。     

水利资金政策演变与发展趋势研究

水利资金关系我国水利事业发展和水利工程建设运营,水利资金政策则是实现资金规范高效使用与管理的依据和保障。在梳理1980—2020年国家层面关于水利资金政策的基础上,从政策特征、政策主体、政策工具及政策主题多维度运用政策计量方法开展水利资金政策文本分析,探究了我国水利资金政策的全貌及演化规律,找寻新时代水利资金政策的发展趋势。研究发现,政策出台数量与经济社会发展进程相适应,水利现代化改革持续深化;为保证水利资金政策的制定和推行协调顺畅,发文主体以政策网络为主,且逐渐呈现多元化主体共商共治趋势;政策工具以命令控制型为主,相伴导向激励和建议辅助,由单一向组合政策工具转变;政策主题由安全性、保障性的刚性需求转变为整体性、协调性的发展需求。研究结果可为水利资金管理与高效使用提供理论参考。     

When Two Wrongs Make a Right: Second-Best Point–Nonpoint Trading Ratios

Most research on point–nonpoint trading focuses on the choice of trading ratio (the rate point source controls trade for nonpoint controls), although the first-best ratio is jointly determined with the optimal number of permits. In practice, program managers often do not have control over the number of permits—only the trading ratio. The trading ratio in this case can only be second-best. We derive the second-best trading ratio and, using a numerical example of trading in the Susquehanna River Basin, we find the values are in line with current ratios, but for different reasons than those that are normally provided.     

Investment in site-specific crop management under uncertainty: implications for nitrogen pollution control and environmental policy

This paper applies an option‐pricing model to analyze the impact of uncertainty about output prices and expectations of declining fixed costs on the optimal timing of investment in site‐specific crop management (SSCM). It also analyzes the extent to which the level of spatial variability in soil conditions can mitigate the value of waiting to invest in SSCM and influence the optimal timing of adoption and create a preference for custom hiring rather than owner purchase of equipment. Numerical simulations show that while the net present value (NPV) rule predicts that immediate adoption is profitable under most of the soil conditions considered here, recognition of the option value of investment indicates that it is preferable to delay investment in SSCM for at least 3 years unless average soil quality is high and the variability in soil quality and fertility is high. The use of the option value approach reveals that the value of waiting to invest in SSCM raises the cost‐share subsidy rates required to induce immediate adoption above the levels indicated by the NPV rule.     

长三角水环境政策效力及耦合协调关系演化

筛选长三角三省一市2005—2020年期间的水环境政策文本,从政策力度、目标和措施3个维度建立政策效力量化框架,并运用耦合协调模型分析水环境政策在空间和工具维度上的耦合协调演化特征。研究结果表明:三省一市水环境政策效力均逐年提高,政策工具使用结构以权威型为主导但单位效力有待提高,而系统变革和象征劝诫型工具使用最少但单位效力较高;省市间水环境政策协调关系经历了失调发展、转向协调和协调发展3个阶段,其中安徽省与苏浙沪间的协调发展明显滞后,国家层面的规划政策显著促进了长三角地区水环境政策协调关系的良性转变;政策工具间的耦合协调关系从失调发展阶段到转向协调阶段,各省市政策工具间的协调关系呈现差异性,整体而言尚有较大提升空间。     

Presumptions of linearity and faith in the power of centralised decision‐making: two challenges to the efficient management of environmental water in Australia

Water policy in the Murray‐Darling Basin continues to be dominated by the trade‐offs between agricultural and environmental interests. This has recently been played out with the acrimonious debate that circumscribed the release of the Guide to the Murray‐Darling Basin Plan. In this paper, we argue that too much emphasis has been placed on the volume of held water as an indicator of environmental benefit. We also contend that there is an attendant presumption of linearity in the relationship between volumes of held water and environmental benefit which could lead to perverse outcomes. A second problem is that there is too much enthusiasm for contemplating the solutions to water management problems as residing primarily at the federal level of government. These factors stand to ultimately limit the efficient delivery of environmental objectives.     

节水财税金融政策模式创新研究

我国节水管理的财税金融支持政策较为薄弱。节能与节水同样具有显著公益性和外部性,其财税金融政策经验可供节水领域借鉴。从政策手段、支持目标和实施效果等政策要素角度,对比分析我国节水与节能财税金融支持政策存在的差距。在政策手段上,支持节水的财政、税收、贷款、基金、债券等政策工具尚未得到系统应用,上市融资、保险、证券等金融手段还处于探索阶段。在政策目标上,对节水灌溉设施运行维护、节水技术与产品研发及推广、节水示范等支持较弱。在政策效果上,节水行业发展规模和效率水平都明显落后于节能行业。基于政策要素对比,将所需完善的政策手段和支持目标进行组合,得到需要创新实施的10项节水财税金融政策模式。     

南充市清洁能源行动计划的政策分析

分析了南充市区大气污染的主要原因是排放污染物(TSP和SO2)较大的工业锅炉和民用燃煤设施。清洁能源行动是治理南充市区大气污染的可行性方案,研究表明,1997-2003年南充市区大气质量明显提高。预测2005年可以达到国家空气质量二级标准。清洁能源行动过程中面临经济、管理和法规等方面的政策障碍,提出通过市场调节机制克服并完善,实现市区大气质量的持续改善。     

基于博弈论的城市水源地水资源分配模式和相关政策分析

应用博弈论的方法,探讨水源地、城市及用水者等相关利益主体在不同决策模式下的行为方式,分析了“用水者各自决策”“城市政府主导分配”“市场交易”和“政府调控下的市场配置”4种水源地水资源分配模式,认为“政府调控下的市场配置”是相对最优模式。探讨了跨境水源地权利保护机制、用水总量控制政策背景下的水源地水资源分配、水源地水权交易和生态补偿等相关政策问题,并提出相关政策建议。     

安阳市水质现状分析与应对策略

通过对河南省安阳市水质现状的调查与分析,找出了导致安阳市水污染的根本原因,并且提出了从保持经济发展与资源、环保相协调,健全并改进水质监测网络,严格控制污染物的排放量,改革水资源管理体制,完善水污染防治的法规体系,各部门协调统一,共同治污等方面改善安阳市水质污染现状的措施.     

Mitigating environmental risks: Modeling the interaction of water quality parameters and land use cover

Understanding the relationship between rivers water quality (RWQ) and landscape metrics (LMs) is valuable for developing sustainable watershed management practices and pollution/environmental risk mitigation. To do so, the current study aimed to explore the relationship between RWQ and LMs by assessing 74 sub-basins within 2 million ha in Northern Iran. Principal component analyses were used to identify principal water quality parameters. Considering the effect of composition and configuration of the Land Use/Land Cover (LULC) on pollution loads, statistical models revealed that by increasing the mean of the Fractal Dimension Index of agricultural lands, the nitrate loads will increase. The results of this study can be especially used in the environmental impact/risk assessment of new industrial and residential applications. Also, the findings of the current study could provide a perfect source for calculations and choosing the best policy making decisions.