ECONOMIC POLICIES FOR REGULATING AGRICULTURAL DRAINAGE WATER1

ABSTRACT: Agricultural drainage water is a major source of environmental pollution in many areas. This paper reviews the literature on the economics of nonpoint-source pollution and applies it to the regulation of agricultural drainage water. Four types of regulatory policies are considered. The empirical analysis is carried out for cotton production in the San Joaquin Valley of California. Variable inputs are the quantity of water applied and the type of irrigation system. All four policies can achieve economic efficiency under the conditions assumed here, but the policies differ in terms of the distributional impacts and administrative requirements.     

SOIL WATER CHARACTERISTICS OF TWO SOIL CATENAS IN ILLINOIS: IMPLICATIONS FOR IRRIGATION1

ABSTRACT: Soil water was monitored by neutron scattering in six soils, three each within two drainage catenas in east-central Illinois, over a 15-month time span. The prairie soils have formed in: (1) 76–152 cm of silt loam, eolian sediments (bess) over glacial till (Catlin-Flanagan-Drummer catena), and (2) bess greater than 152 cm in thickness (Tama-Ipava-Sable catena). We characterized the water content of these soils over the total time span and for wet and dry climatic subsets, as an aid to potential irrigation decisions. Soils of the thin bess, C-F-D catena dried out to lower water contents and had greater soil water variability than did the thick bess soils. Under wet conditions, soil water contents in the two catenas were quite similar. Alleviation of surface and subsurface drying via irrigation would thus be more advantageous to yields on the C-F-D soils than on the T-I-S soils.     

Wellhead treatment costs for groundwater contaminated with pesticides: A preliminary analysis for pineapple in Hawaii

In Hawaii, trace concentrations of pesticides used in the production of pineapple were found in the groundwater supplies of Mililani Town in the Pearl Harbor Basin on the island of Oahu. Groundwater serves as the major source of drinking water and residents pay for wellhead treatment of the contaminated water, via their monthly water bill. The agricultural chemical users within the Pearl Harbor Basin do not include these wellhead treatment costs in their production costs. The agricultural industry benefits from using pesticides but does not pay the entire societal cost of using these chemicals. In this study we evaluate the specific financial cost of wellhead treatment, and not the economic value of groundwater. While wellhead treatment costs could conceivably be shared by several parties, this study focuses on the financial impact of the pineapple industry alone. This study factors annual wellhead treatment costs into annual pineapple production costs to measure the effect on annual financial return from pineapple production. Wellhead treatment costs are calculated from the existing granulated activated carbon (GAC) water treatment facility for Millilani Wells I and II. Pineapple production costs are estimated from previous cost of production studies. The inclusion of wellhead treatment costs produces different production-cost results, depending on the scale of analysis. At the local scale, the Mililani wellhead treatment costs can be factored into the production costs of the pineapple fields, which were probably responsible for contamination of the Mililani Wells, without causing a deficit in economic return. At the larger regional scale, however, the return from all of the pineapple grown in the Pearl Harbor Basin can not sustain the cost of wellhead treatmentfor the entire water supply of the basin. Recommendations point to the prevention of groundwater contamination as more cost-effective measure than wellhead treatment.     

The declining cocoa economy and the Atlantic Forest of Southern Bahia,Brazil: Conservation attitudes of cocoa planters

Summary The causes of the degradation of Brazilian Atlantic Forest in the south-eastern cocoa region of the State of Bahia are investigated by means of a survey on cocoa planter's forest conservation attitudes. Large land-owners were found to be responsible for most of the forest clearing that occurred in the past: cocoa prices compensated investment in the expansion of the area planted to cocoa on planters' forested land-holdings. Large land-owners were also responsible for most of the recent forest clearing, which occurred simply to sell trees in order to earn income while cocoa prices were depressed. Large land-owners are nonetheless more interested than small land-owners in conserving some of their forest. Policies encouraging private forest conservation, and the development of forest-conserving agricultural alternatives for the landless poor are recommended.Dr Keith Alger teaches at the Universidade Estadual de Santa Cruz in Southern Bahia, a community college in Brazil's cocoa producing region. He is Vice-President of Fundação Pau Brasil, a non-profit association of local researchers and environmentalists whose objective is to encourage the conservation of biodiversity in regional, economic and social development. He does volunteer work for Projeto Mico-Leão Baiano (The Bahian Lion Tamarin Project), an environmental education project coordinated by maria Cristina Alves and sponsored by the Wildlife Preservation Trust International. Dr Alger's current research on land-use tendencies in a wildlife park buffer zone is supported by Conservation International and the World Wildlife fund. Marcellus Caldas took his MS in agricultural economics at the Universidade Federal de Viçosa in Minas Gerais, and teaches at the Universidade Federal da Bahia in Cruz das Almas, Bahia, Brazil.     

WATER POLICIES FOR ENERGY DEVELOPMENT1

ABSTRACF: Examination of a series of studies of the economically efficient water allocations in the Upper Colorado River, Yellowstone River, and Great Basins indicate that water is not a serious general physical constraint on the development of energy resources, so long as public institutions do not hinder the exchange of water rights in markets. Energy development will cause limited impacts on other water-using sectors, principally agriculture. There appears to be little reason to develop large-scale water storage facilities, even during periods of reduced water production. Water storage developments appear to be necessary only when institutional constraints severely restrict water rights markets and transfers.     

Trying harder: Developing a new sustainable strategy for the UK

The UK reviewed its National Sustainable Development Strategy during 2003 and 2004, and produced a new strategy — the third for the UK — in March 2005. Having established that the main weakness of the previous strategy was in its delivery, the review and the resulting new strategy set out to put a much stronger emphasis on delivery mechanisms. In support of this, the process included more participative ways for those involved in delivering to contribute their views and ideas, including web‐based dialogue, participative events and seminars, and community level discussions. The key points for the success of the project were the involvement of stakeholders; project management of the process; a marketing and communications strategy; cross‐departmental governance; and involvement of an external challenge function (fulfilled in the UK by the Sustainable Development Commission).     

USING SOIL TEXTURE TO ESTIMATE SATURATED HYDRAULIC CONDUCTIVITY AND THE IMPACT ON RAINFALL-RUNOFF SIMULATIONS1

ABSTRACT: In this paper a new set of soil texture data is used to estimate the spatial distribution of saturated hydraulic conductivity values for a small rangeland catchment. The estimates of conductivity are used to re-excite and re-evaluate a quasi-physically based rainfall-runoff model. The performance of the model is significantly reduced with conductivity estimates gleaned from soil texture data rather than the infiltration data used in our previous efforts.