IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ags/hebarc/18353.html

The Designation of Co-benefits and Its Implication for Policy: Water Quality versus Carbon Sequestration in Agricultural Soils

Author

Listed:
  • Secchi, Silvia
  • Jha, Manoj K.
  • Kurkalova, Lyubov A.
  • Feng, Hongli
  • Gassman, Philip W.
  • Kling, Catherine L.

Abstract

This study investigates the implications of treating different environmental benefits as the primary target of policy design. We focus on two scenarios, estimating for both of them in-stream sediment, nutrient loadings, and carbon sequestration. In the first, we assess the impact of a program designed to improve water quality in Iowa on carbon sequestration, and in the second, we calculate the water quality impact of a program aimed at maximizing carbon sequestration. In both cases, the policy instrument is the retirement of land from agricultural production. Our results, limited to the state of Iowa, and to the case of set-aside for water quality or carbon sequestration purposes, indicate that the amount of co-benefits depends on what indicators are used to measure water quality. In general, this study shows that improving "water quality" in the sense of reducing nutrient or sediment loadings is too vague. Even if it is taken to refer to in-stream nutrients, because the responses of nitrogen and phosphorus to conservation efforts are not well correlated, this terminology may not provide much guidance.

Suggested Citation

  • Secchi, Silvia & Jha, Manoj K. & Kurkalova, Lyubov A. & Feng, Hongli & Gassman, Philip W. & Kling, Catherine L., 2005. "The Designation of Co-benefits and Its Implication for Policy: Water Quality versus Carbon Sequestration in Agricultural Soils," Hebrew University of Jerusalem Archive 18353, Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
    • Handle: RePEc:ags:hebarc:18353
    DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.18353
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/18353/files/wp050389.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.22004/ag.econ.18353?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. Gassman, Philip W. & Secchi, S. & Jha, M. & Kurkalova, L. & Feng, Hongli & Kling, Catherine L., 2005. "Nonpoint Source Needs Assessment for Iowa Part III: Economic and Environmental Outcomes," ISU General Staff Papers 200501010800001069, Iowa State University, Department of Economics.
    2. Hongli Feng & Lyubov A. Kurkalova & Catherine L. Kling & Philip W. Gassman, 2004. "Environmental Conservation in Agriculture: Land Retirement versus Changing Practices on Working Land," Center for Agricultural and Rural Development (CARD) Publications 04-wp365, Center for Agricultural and Rural Development (CARD) at Iowa State University.
    3. Marc O. Ribaudo, 1989. "Targeting the Conservation Reserve Program to Maximize Water Quality Benefits," Land Economics, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 65(4), pages 320-332.
    4. Ribaudo, Marc O. & Heimlich, Ralph & Claassen, Roger & Peters, Mark, 2001. "Least-cost management of nonpoint source pollution: source reduction versus interception strategies for controlling nitrogen loss in the Mississippi Basin," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 37(2), pages 183-197, May.
    5. Desvousges, William H. & Smith, V. Kerry & Fisher, Ann, 1987. "Option price estimates for water quality improvements: A contingent valuation study for the monongahela river," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 14(3), pages 248-267, September.
    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. is not listed on IDEAS
    2. Rabotyagov, Sergey S., 2007. "Four essays on environmental policy under uncertainty with applications to water quality and carbon sequestration," ISU General Staff Papers 2007010108000016610, Iowa State University, Department of Economics.

    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. Secchi, Silvia & Feng, Hongli & Kurkalova, Lyubov A. & Kling, Catherine L. & Gassman, Philip W. & Jha, Manoj, 2005. "Nonpoint Source Needs Assessment for Iowa Part II: the Cost of Improving Iowa’s Water Quality," ISU General Staff Papers 200501010800001068, Iowa State University, Department of Economics.
    2. Kroetz, Kailin & Kuwayama, Yusuke & Vexler, Caroline, 2019. "What is a Fish Out of Water? The Economics Behind the Joint Management of Water Resources and Aquatic Species in the United States," RFF Working Paper Series 19-09, Resources for the Future.
    3. Hongli Feng & Catherine L. Kling & Lyubov A. Kurkalova & Silvia Secchi & Philip W. Gassman, 2005. "The Conservation Reserve Program in the Presence of a Working Land Alternative: Implications for Environmental Quality, Program Participation, and Income Transfer," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 87(5), pages 1231-1238.
    4. Zhendong Hong & Qinghe Zhao & Jinlong Chang & Li Peng & Shuoqian Wang & Yongyi Hong & Gangjun Liu & Shengyan Ding, 2020. "Evaluation of Water Quality and Heavy Metals in Wetlands along the Yellow River in Henan Province," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(4), pages 1-19, February.
    5. Kozloff, Keith, 1990. "An Evaluation Of Options For Micro-Targeting Acquisition Of Cropping Rights To Reduce Nonpoint Source Water Pollution," Staff Papers 13610, University of Minnesota, Department of Applied Economics.
    6. Kaplan, Jonathan D. & Johansson, Robert C., 2003. "When The !%$? Hits The Land: Implications For Us Agriculture And Environment When Land Application Of Manure Is Constrained," 2003 Annual meeting, July 27-30, Montreal, Canada 22002, American Agricultural Economics Association (New Name 2008: Agricultural and Applied Economics Association).
    7. Nunes, P.A.L.D. & Nijkamp, P., 2011. "Biodiversity: Economic perspectives," Serie Research Memoranda 0002, VU University Amsterdam, Faculty of Economics, Business Administration and Econometrics.
    8. Bateman, Ian J. & Day, Brett H. & Dupont, Diane P. & Georgiou, Stavros, 2006. "Incentive compatibility and procedural invariance testing of the one-and-one-half-bound dichotomous choice elicitation method: distinguishing strategic behaviour from the anchoring heuristic," 2006 Annual meeting, July 23-26, Long Beach, CA 21104, American Agricultural Economics Association (New Name 2008: Agricultural and Applied Economics Association).
    9. José Albiac, 2006. "The Case of the Water Framework Directive and Irrigation in Mediterranean Agriculture," Human Development Occasional Papers (1992-2007) HDOCPA-2006-34, Human Development Report Office (HDRO), United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).
    10. Batie, Sandra S. & Arcenas, Agustin, 1998. "Toward Agricultural Environmental Management: Applying Lessons From Corporate Environmental Management," Staff Paper Series 11807, Michigan State University, Department of Agricultural, Food, and Resource Economics.
    11. Yang, Wanhong & Khanna, Madhu & Farnsworth, Richard & Onal, Hayri, 2003. "Integrating economic, environmental and GIS modeling to target cost effective land retirement in multiple watersheds," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 46(2), pages 249-267, September.
    12. Catherine L. Kling & Yiannis Panagopoulos & Sergey S. Rabotyagov & Adriana M. Valcu & Philip W. Gassman & Todd Campbell & Michael J. White & Jeffrey G. Arnold & Raghavan Srinivasan & Manoj K. Jha & Je, 2014. "LUMINATE: linking agricultural land use, local water quality and Gulf of Mexico hypoxia," European Review of Agricultural Economics, Oxford University Press and the European Agricultural and Applied Economics Publications Foundation, vol. 41(3), pages 431-459.
    13. Feng, Hongli, 2005. "The dynamics of carbon sequestration and alternative carbon accounting, with an application to the upper Mississippi River Basin," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 54(1), pages 23-35, July.
    14. I. Bateman & R. Brouwer & S. Ferrini & M. Schaafsma & D. Barton & A. Dubgaard & B. Hasler & S. Hime & I. Liekens & S. Navrud & L. De Nocker & R. Ščeponavičiūtė & D. Semėnienė, 2011. "Making Benefit Transfers Work: Deriving and Testing Principles for Value Transfers for Similar and Dissimilar Sites Using a Case Study of the Non-Market Benefits of Water Quality Improvements Across Europe," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 50(3), pages 365-387, November.
    15. Abrego, Lisandro & Perroni, Carlo, 1999. "Free-riding, carbon treaties, and trade wars: the role of domestic environmental policies," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 58(2), pages 463-483, April.
    16. Feng, Hongli & Kling, Catherine L., 2005. "Carbon Sequestration in Agriculture: an Offset Program versus Other Conservation Programs," 2005 Annual meeting, July 24-27, Providence, RI 19177, American Agricultural Economics Association (New Name 2008: Agricultural and Applied Economics Association).
    17. Ulrich J Frey & Frauke Pirscher, 2019. "Distinguishing protest responses in contingent valuation: A conceptualization of motivations and attitudes behind them," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 14(1), pages 1-20, January.
    18. Guilherme S. Bastos & Erik Lichtenberg, 2001. "Priorities in Cost Sharing for Soil and Water Conservation: A Revealed Preference Study," Land Economics, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 77(4), pages 533-547.
    19. Yanrong Lu & Chen Wang & Rongjin Yang & Meiying Sun & Le Zhang & Yuying Zhang & Xiuhong Li, 2023. "Research on the Progress of Agricultural Non-Point Source Pollution Management in China: A Review," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(18), pages 1-14, September.
    20. repec:isu:genstf:201401010800004899 is not listed on IDEAS
    21. Khanna, Madhu & Yang, Wanhong & Farnsworth, Richard L. & Onal, Hayri, 2002. "Evaluating The Cost Effectiveness Of Land Retirement Programs," 2002 Annual meeting, July 28-31, Long Beach, CA 19740, American Agricultural Economics Association (New Name 2008: Agricultural and Applied Economics Association).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;

    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:hebarc:18353. 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: .

    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.