IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ags/assa16/212815.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Resilient Provision of Ecosystem Services from Agricultural Landscapes: Tradeoffs Involving Means and Variances of Water Quality Improvements

Author

Listed:
  • Rabotyagov, Sergey
  • Valcu, Adriana
  • Kling, Catherine L.

Abstract

We assess the tradeoffs and synergies involved in reducing agriculture-generated nutrient loads with different levels of resilience. We optimize the selection of least-cost patterns of agricultural conservation practices for both the expected performance of the conservation actions and its variance. Securing nutrient loads with a higher level of resilience is costly, with marginal costs of resilience generally declining with lower loads. We find that the main tradeoff dimension is between cost of conservation investments and ecosystem service objectives, as opposed to pronounced mean-variance or between- nutrient objectives tradeoffs. We find relative synergies in agricultural conservation investments aimed at nutrient reductions.

Suggested Citation

  • Rabotyagov, Sergey & Valcu, Adriana & Kling, Catherine L., 2015. "Resilient Provision of Ecosystem Services from Agricultural Landscapes: Tradeoffs Involving Means and Variances of Water Quality Improvements," 2016 Allied Social Sciences Association (ASSA) Annual Meeting, January 3-5, 2016, San Francisco, California 212815, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    • Handle: RePEc:ags:assa16:212815
    DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.212815
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/212815/files/Valcu.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.22004/ag.econ.212815?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Heal, Geoffrey M. & Small, Arthur A., 2002. "Agriculture and ecosystem services," Handbook of Agricultural Economics, in: B. L. Gardner & G. C. Rausser (ed.), Handbook of Agricultural Economics, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 25, pages 1341-1341, Elsevier.
    2. Nicholas Z. Muller & Robert Mendelsohn & William Nordhaus, 2011. "Environmental Accounting for Pollution in the United States Economy," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(5), pages 1649-1675, August.
    3. Bystrom, Olof & Andersson, Hans & Gren, Ing-Marie, 2000. "Economic criteria for using wetlands as nitrogen sinks under uncertainty," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 35(1), pages 35-45, October.
    4. Parkhurst, Gregory M. & Shogren, Jason F., 2007. "Spatial incentives to coordinate contiguous habitat," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 64(2), pages 344-355, December.
    5. Gren, Ing-Marie, 2008. "Adaptation and mitigation strategies for controlling stochastic water pollution: An application to the Baltic Sea," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 66(2-3), pages 337-347, June.
    6. Lyubov A. Kurkalova, 2005. "Carbon Sequestration in Agricultural Soils: Discounting for Uncertainty," Canadian Journal of Agricultural Economics/Revue canadienne d'agroeconomie, Canadian Agricultural Economics Society/Societe canadienne d'agroeconomie, vol. 53(4), pages 375-384, December.
    7. McSweeny, William T. & Shortle, James S., 1990. "Probabilistic Cost Effectiveness In Agricultural Nonpoint Pollution Control," Southern Journal of Agricultural Economics, Southern Agricultural Economics Association, vol. 22(1), pages 1-10, July.
    8. David Bigman, 1996. "Safety-First Criteria and Their Measures of Risk," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 78(1), pages 225-235.
    9. repec:bla:canjag:v:58:y:2010:i:s1:p:411-431 is not listed on IDEAS
    10. Sergey S. Rabotyagov & Manoj Jha & Todd D. Campbell, 2010. "Nonpoint‐Source Pollution Reduction for an Iowa Watershed: An Application of Evolutionary Algorithms," Canadian Journal of Agricultural Economics/Revue canadienne d'agroeconomie, Canadian Agricultural Economics Society/Societe canadienne d'agroeconomie, vol. 58(4), pages 411-431, December.
    11. Beavis, Brian & Walker, Martin, 1983. "Achieving environmental standards with stochastic discharges," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 10(2), pages 103-111, June.
    12. L. Jeff Hong & Yi Yang & Liwei Zhang, 2011. "Sequential Convex Approximations to Joint Chance Constrained Programs: A Monte Carlo Approach," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 59(3), pages 617-630, June.
    13. Stephen Polasky & Kathleen Segerson, 2009. "Integrating Ecology and Economics in the Study of Ecosystem Services: Some Lessons Learned," Annual Review of Resource Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 1(1), pages 409-434, September.
    14. Catherine L. Kling, 2011. "Economic Incentives to Improve Water Quality in Agricultural Landscapes: Some New Variations on Old Ideas," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 93(2), pages 297-309.
    15. Lichtenberg, Erik, 2002. "Agriculture and the environment," Handbook of Agricultural Economics, in: B. L. Gardner & G. C. Rausser (ed.), Handbook of Agricultural Economics, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 23, pages 1249-1313, Elsevier.
    16. Sergey S. Rabotyagov, 2010. "Ecosystem Services under Benefit and Cost Uncertainty: An Application to Soil Carbon Sequestration," Land Economics, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 86(4), pages 668-686.
    17. Vijay S. Bawa, 1973. "On Chance Constrained Programming Problems with Joint Constraints," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 19(11), pages 1326-1331, July.
    18. Elofsson, Katarina, 2003. "Cost-effective reductions of stochastic agricultural loads to the Baltic Sea," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 47(1), pages 13-31, November.
    19. Poojari, Chandra A. & Varghese, Boby, 2008. "Genetic Algorithm based technique for solving Chance Constrained Problems," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 185(3), pages 1128-1154, March.
    20. Miguel Porto & Otília Correia & Pedro Beja, 2014. "Optimization of Landscape Services under Uncoordinated Management by Multiple Landowners," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 9(1), pages 1-16, January.
    21. Boyd, James & Banzhaf, Spencer, 2007. "What are ecosystem services? The need for standardized environmental accounting units," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 63(2-3), pages 616-626, August.
    22. James Shortle & Richard D. Horan, 2013. "Policy Instruments for Water Quality Protection," Annual Review of Resource Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 5(1), pages 111-138, June.
    23. Erik Lichtenberg & David Zilberman, 1988. "Efficient Regulation of Environmental Health Risks," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 103(1), pages 167-178.
    24. Quirino Paris, 1979. "Revenue and Cost Uncertainty, Generalized Mean-Variance, and the Linear Complementarity Problem," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 61(2), pages 268-275.
    25. Kampas, Athanasios & White, Ben, 2003. "Probabilistic programming for nitrate pollution control: Comparing different probabilistic constraint approximations," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 147(1), pages 217-228, May.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Raviv, Orna & Tchetchik, Anat & Lotan, Alon & Izhaki, Ido & Zemah Shamir, Shiri, 2021. "Direct and indirect valuation of air-quality regulation service as reflected in the preferences towards distinct types of landscape in a biosphere reserve," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 180(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Zhen, Chen & Zheng, Xiaoyong, 2015. "Measuring the Informational Value of Interpretive Shelf Nutrition Labels to Shoppers," 2016 Allied Social Sciences Association (ASSA) Annual Meeting, January 3-5, 2016, San Francisco, California 212812, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    2. Sergey S. Rabotyagov, 2010. "Ecosystem Services under Benefit and Cost Uncertainty: An Application to Soil Carbon Sequestration," Land Economics, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 86(4), pages 668-686.
    3. Gren, Ing-Marie & Carlsson, Mattias & Elofsson, Katarina & Munnich, Miriam, 2012. "Stochastic carbon sinks for combating carbon dioxide emissions in the EU," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 34(5), pages 1523-1531.
    4. repec:bla:canjag:v:58:y:2010:i:s1:p:411-431 is not listed on IDEAS
    5. George HALKOS & Georgia GALANI, 2014. "Cost Effectiveness Analysis in Reducing Nutrient Loading in Baltic and Black Seas A Review," Journal of Advanced Research in Management, ASERS Publishing, vol. 5(1), pages 28-51.
    6. Gren, Ing-Marie & Baxter, Peter & Mikusinski, Grzegorz & Possingham, Hugh, 2014. "Cost-effective biodiversity restoration with uncertain growth in forest habitat quality," Journal of Forest Economics, Elsevier, vol. 20(1), pages 77-92.
    7. Gren, Ing-Marie, 2008. "Adaptation and mitigation strategies for controlling stochastic water pollution: An application to the Baltic Sea," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 66(2-3), pages 337-347, June.
    8. James Shortle & Richard D. Horan, 2013. "Policy Instruments for Water Quality Protection," Annual Review of Resource Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 5(1), pages 111-138, June.
    9. Lacroix, Anne & Beaudoin, Nicolas & Makowski, David, 2005. "Agricultural water nonpoint pollution control under uncertainty and climate variability," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 53(1), pages 115-127, April.
    10. Ekman, Sone, 2002. "Cost-Effective Farm-Level Nitrogen Abatement in the Presence of Environmental and Economic Risk," 2002 International Congress, August 28-31, 2002, Zaragoza, Spain 24860, European Association of Agricultural Economists.
    11. Springborn, Michael & Yeo, Boon-Ling & Lee, Juhwan & Six, Johan, 2013. "Crediting uncertain ecosystem services in a market," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 66(3), pages 554-572.
    12. Ghosh, Gaurav & Shortle, James, 2012. "Managing Pollution Risk through Emissions Trading," FCN Working Papers 1/2012, E.ON Energy Research Center, Future Energy Consumer Needs and Behavior (FCN).
    13. Sergey Rabotyagov & Catherine L. Kling & Philip W. Gassman & Nancy N. Rabalais & R. Eugene Turner, 2012. "Economics of Dead Zones: Linking Externalities from the Land to their Consequences in the Sea, The," Center for Agricultural and Rural Development (CARD) Publications 12-wp534, Center for Agricultural and Rural Development (CARD) at Iowa State University.
    14. Lichtenberg, Erik, 2002. "Agriculture and the environment," Handbook of Agricultural Economics, in: B. L. Gardner & G. C. Rausser (ed.), Handbook of Agricultural Economics, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 23, pages 1249-1313, Elsevier.
    15. Gren, Ing-Marie & Carlsson, Mattias, 2013. "Economic value of carbon sequestration in forests under multiple sources of uncertainty," Journal of Forest Economics, Elsevier, vol. 19(2), pages 174-189.
    16. Athanasios Kampas & Ben White, 2004. "Administrative Costs and Instrument Choice for Stochastic Non-point Source Pollutants," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 27(2), pages 109-133, February.
    17. Brausmann, Alexandra & Bretschger, Lucas, 2018. "Economic development on a finite planet with stochastic soil degradation," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 108(C), pages 1-19.
    18. Cloé Garnache & Scott M. Swinton & Joseph A. Herriges & Frank Lupi & R. Jan Stevenson, 2016. "Solving the Phosphorus Pollution Puzzle: Synthesis and Directions for Future Research," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 98(5), pages 1334-1359.
    19. Erik Lichtenberg & Tony M. Penn, 2003. "Prevention versus Treatment under Precautionary Regulation: A Case Study of Groundwater Contamination under Uncertainty," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 85(1), pages 44-58.
    20. H. Spencer Banzhaf & James Boyd, 2012. "The Architecture and Measurement of an Ecosystem Services Index," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 4(4), pages 1-32, March.
    21. Kari Hyytiäinen & Anni Huhtala, 2014. "Combating eutrophication in coastal areas at risk for oil spills," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 219(1), pages 101-121, August.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Agribusiness; Agricultural and Food Policy; Agricultural Finance;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • Q25 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Renewable Resources and Conservation - - - Water
    • C63 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Mathematical Methods; Programming Models; Mathematical and Simulation Modeling - - - Computational Techniques

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ags:assa16:212815. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: AgEcon Search (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/aaeaaea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.