Missouri Watershed Water Quality Initiative

Agricultural and Food Policy, Environmental Economics and Policy,

A review of assessment methods for river hydromorphology

The work leading to this paper has received funding for the EU’s FP7 under Grant Agreement No. 282656 (REFORM

Fresh Water and Smarter Growth: Restoring Healthy Land-water Connections

The paper describes water resources in the United States, discusses the principles of the land-water connection, outlines the current regulatory framework, and explains the impact of climate change. It also introduces the concept of low impact development while providing examples, and highlights how funders are having an impact on sustainable water management. With bibliographical references

Empathy Conditioned Conservation: "Walking-in-the-Shoes-of-Others" as a Conservation Farmer

Since the destruction and despair caused by the dust bowl of the 1930’s, Americans and their government have taken a keen interest in natural resource conservation policy on agricultural land. The Soil Conservation and Domestic Allotment Act of 1936 was the first farm bill to include provisions that provided payments to farmers willing to employ soil conservation measures (Cain and Lovejoy, 2004). While the main purpose of this bill was to provide financial support to impoverished farmers, the fact remains that natural resource conservation was starting to become an important issue for the American public. Over time, conservation titles in the farm bill have evolved into legislation that protects several resources, including surface water. Expenditures have also significantly increased. While giving monetary payments to individual producers engaging in conservation activities is ultimately a policy decision, the underlying assumption for these payments is one outlined in traditional microeconomic theory, which presumes producers are engaging in activities that will maximize profits. Since conservation activities are not inherently profitable to the individual farmer, payments are provided under the presumption that the only way to increase conservation efforts is to increase profits. The environmental results from these payment schemes have been mixed. With this in mind, the USDA has begun funding research that examines the underlying factors that motivate producers to engage in conservation activities. As part of this new research, a collaboration of researchers from a group of Midwestern universities and government agencies recently engaged in a study of conservation behavior exhibited by producers located in the Blue River/Tuttle Creek Lake watershed of Nebraska and Kansas. Examination of this particular watershed was conducted because it currently provides drinking water to areas of northeast Kansas that are exhibiting rapid population expansion, such as Manhattan, Lawrence, and Kansas City. The Blue River/Tuttle Creek Lake watershed covers a large portion of southcentral and southeast Nebraska, as well as northeast Kansas. However, the use of natural resource assessment maps and empirical surface water quality data served to identify a critical four county area of nonpoint source runoff near the Nebraska-Kansas border that may have the largest impact on Tuttle Creek Lake. Particular attention was paid to the adoption of no-till/conservation tillage strategies in this area due to the sedimentation problem in the Lake. Data was obtained through the use of both focus groups and a mail survey. Overall, the survey response rate was 17.1 percent (639 survey responses; 498 surveys were used in the statistical analysis). Variables used to assess what motivates farmers to engage in conservation tillage technologies included income capacity; psychological tendencies for jointly pursuing self-interest and an empathy conditioned, shared other-interest; habitual tendencies; and preferences for control over farming operations. Results confirmed some old notions and added several new insights into what actually motivates being a conservation farmer. As economic (and policy) tradition suggests, we confirmed that income (i.e. financial capacity) was a significant variable. However, the models showed that a one thousand dollar increase in income only increased the odds of conservation tillage adoption by 0.4 to 0.6 percent (i.e. less than 1 percent). The first new insight suggests that farmers who recognize the water quality problem in the watershed and subsequently empathize with downstream water users (i.e. “walk-in-their-shoes”) are much more likely to engage in conservation tillage strategies. In fact, we show that farmers with even a small interest in identifying with downstream water users are anywhere from four to nine percent more likely to use conservation tillage technologies. Related to this empathy phenomenon, we also show that people other than the individual farmer can influence the decision to use conservation tillage. We found that the odds of conservation tillage adoption increase by nine percent for those farmers that think farm entities (i.e. lenders, chemical and seed suppliers, equipment dealers, etc) believe that they should use conservation tillage technologies. Intriguingly, though, we also found that the opinions of family members and downstream water users do not have a significant impact on the tillage decision. Another new insight points to how preferences for control impact the decision. Our results indicated that a farmer who believes the use of conservation tillage results in a loss of control over farming operations is less likely to use the technology. In fact, the odds of conservation tillage adoption decrease by about nine percent for those that perceive just a small loss of control over farm operations when using conservation tillage technologies. Finally, we find that a farmer’s habitual tendencies play a large role on the tillage adoption decision in the study area, with the odds of conservation tillage adoption increasing by nearly forty percent if a farmer has used conservation tillage in the past. While some would argue that “we always knew that current choice is affected by past (habit) choice,” the underpinnings are in fact quite new. Only in recent years have behavioral and neuroeconomics researchers documented that we run on automatic most of the time. So, it takes greater financial incentives to move a farmer to a conservation path (i.e. change habits) than it does to keep someone on that path. So what is the bottomline? We conclude that a single over-arching conservation policy based in traditional economics will not work. Rather, a behavioral economics framework gives a a more reasonable and rational basis for said policy. In particular, in addition to financial incentives, policy needs to recognize habits and control, and especially the role of empathy, i.e. “walking-in-the-shoes” of others: Emotions (reflected in empathy) play a much larger role in truly rational choice than traditional economic thinking acknowledges. Solving environmental quality problems depends on better understanding the human dimension of conservation decisions. Cain, Z., and S. Lovejoy. “History and Outlook for Farm Bill Conservation Programs.” Choices (2004): 37-42.Behavioral economics, Empathy. Dual motives, Dual Interests, Shared Other-interest, Self-interest, Institutional and Behavioral Economics, Resource /Energy Economics and Policy,

ACCOUNTING FOR SPATIAL CHARACTERISTICS OF WATERSHEDS IN EVALUATING WATER POLLUTION ABATEMENT POLICIES

This study evaluates three agricultural nonpoint pollution abatement policies: regulating the spatial pattern of agricultural activities, ambient tax, and abatement tax/subsidy. All three policies incorporate spatial characteristics of agricultural emission loading and movement for an agricultural watershed in the Midwest. The effects of spatial variation in natural conditions and landscape features on agricultural emissions and crop yield are evaluated using a newly developed biophysical simulation model and experimental data. While the policies are equally cost effective in reducing agricultural nonpoint source pollution, their implementation feasibility is quite different.atrazine, environmental policy, nonpoint pollution, simulation, watershed management, water quality, Environmental Economics and Policy,

Adaptive Water Law

This is the published version

Assessing the Benefits of Public Research Within an Economic Framework: The Case of USDA's Agricultural Research Service

Evaluation of publicly funded research can help provide accountability and prioritize programs. In addition, Federal intramural research planning generally involves an institutional assessment of the appropriate Federal role, if any, and whether the research should be left to others, such as universities or the private sector. Many methods of evaluation are available, peer review—used primarily for establishing scientific merit—being the most common. Economic analysis focuses on quantifying ultimate research outcomes, whether measured in goods with market prices or in nonmarket goods such as environmental quality or human health. However, standard economic techniques may not be amenable for evaluating some important public research priorities or for institutional assessments. This report reviews quantitative methods and applies qualitative economic reasoning and stakeholder interviewing methods to the evaluation of economic benefits of Federal intramural research using three case studies of research conducted by USDA’s Agricultural Research Service (ARS). Differences among the case studies highlight the need to select suitable assessment techniques from available methodologies, the limited scope for comparing assessment results across programs, and the inherent difficulty in quantifying benefits in some research areas. When measurement and attribution issues make it difficult to quantify these benefits, the report discusses how qualitative insights based on economic concepts can help research prioritization.Agricultural Research Service, Federal intramural research, publicly funded research, Environmental Economics and Policy, Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety, Livestock Production/Industries, Productivity Analysis,

The application of remote sensing to resource management and environmental quality programs in Kansas

The activities of the Kansas Applied Remote Sensing (KARS) Program during the period April 1, 1982 through Marsh 31, 1983 are described. The most important work revolved around the Kansas Interagency Task Force on Applied Remote Sensing and its efforts to establish an operational service oriented remote sensing program in Kansas state government. Concomitant with this work was the upgrading of KARS capabilities to process data for state agencies through the vehicle of a low cost digital data processing system. The KARS Program continued to take an active role in irrigation mapping. KARS is now integrating data acquired through analysis of LANDSAT into geographic information systems designed for evaluating groundwater resources. KARS also continues to work at the national level on the national inventory of state natural resources information systems

Strategic targeting of cropland management using watershed modeling

Pushpa Tuppad1, Kyle R. Douglas-Mankin2, Kent A. McVay3(1. Texas AgriLife Research, 1500 Research Parkway, Suite B223, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 77843, USA;2. Department of Biological & Agricultural Engineering, Kansas State University, Manhattan, KS 66506, USA;3. Railroad Highway, Southern Agricultural Research Center, Huntley, MT 59037, USA) Abstract: Effective water-quality protection should target Best Management Practices (BMPs) on watershed areas that contribute most to water-quality impairment instead of the typical voluntary implementation of practices, which may not be better than a random distribution of BMPs within a watershed.  This paper demonstrates a strategic approach for targeting watershed areas to maximize water-quality benefits from BMP implementation.  Almost half of the Smoky Hill River Watershed, Kansas, USA is cropland, a major sediment and nutrient source.  The impacts of reduced tillage, edge-of-field vegetative filter strips, and contoured-terraced practices on erosion and nutrient loads both overland and at the watershed outlet were evaluated using either random or targeted implementation, based on simulated average subbasin erosion rate.  The targeted approach was more effective in reducing sediment and nutrients, both at subbasin and watershed levels.  Annual average overland pollutant load reductions of 10% required BMP adoption on less than half the land area with targeted versus random placement.  The benefits of targeting were greater for initial increments of BMP adoption and decreased as implementation area increased.Keywords: targeting, conservation practices, erosion, SWAT modeling, watershed Citation: Pushpa Tuppad, Kyle R. Douglas-Mankin, Kent A. McVay.  Strategic targeting of cropland management using watershed modeling.  Agric Eng Int: CIGR Journal, 2010, 12(3): 12-24. &nbsp

BIOECONOMIC MODELING TO ASSESS ECONOMIC AND WATER QUALITY IMPACTS OF LAND USE CHANGE

Changes in water quality and agricultural and forest revenues due to land use changes are compared. A biophysical model estimates the effect in nitrogen and phosphorus runoff and sediment deposition. The results are combined with farm enterprise budgets to estimate the economic returns resulting from land use changes.Land Economics/Use,