History and Outlook for Farm Bill Conservation Programs

Agricultural and Food Policy,

INTEGRATED ASSESSMENT OF ENVIRONMENTAL EFFECTS FROM AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTION

Agriculture's impact on the environment is a complex research problem. A challenge to future economic research is to account for the interrelationship between agricultural production activities, soil productivity, erosion, and water quality. It will become increasingly important to determine not only the economic consequences, but also the environmental effectiveness of alternative policies aimed at improving resource use and quality. The application of biophysical simulation models to environmental quality problems provides a means to better understand the complex interaction between agricultural production and environmental quality.Environmental Economics and Policy,

Novelty Forms: A Satire

Late in the last century, forms (solid crossword arrays with various geometrical outlines) were frequently found in puzzle columns in magazines and newspapers. Constructors soon tired of standard outlines such as squares, diamonds and pyramids, and developed a variety of more exotic ones: stars, crosses, pentagons, enneagons, hurglasses and the like. Two hundred and nine different shapes (including minor variants) can, in fact, be found in the 1906 Key to Puzzledom, a guide to the best in word puzzle literature up to that time. Alas, every excess creates its own reaction; the following satire is an abridgement of an article published by \u27Amaranth\u27 in the Enigma in April, 1924

Correspondence from E.B. Lovejoy, August 30, 1862

Correspondence from E.B. Lovejoy regarding absent soldiers from Androscoggin Countyhttps://digitalmaine.com/absent_soldiers/1018/thumbnail.jp

Correspondence from E.B. Lovejoy, August 01, 1862

Correspondence from E.B. Lovejoy regarding absent soldiers from Androscoggin Countyhttps://digitalmaine.com/absent_soldiers/1000/thumbnail.jp

Correspondence from E.B. Lovejoy, August 05, 1862

Correspondence from E.B. Lovejoy regarding absent soldiers from Androscoggin Countyhttps://digitalmaine.com/absent_soldiers/1009/thumbnail.jp

"GREEN TAXES": IMPACTS ON NATIONAL INCOME, SOCIAL WELFARE, AND ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY

Two taxation schemes were designed to be included in a multi-regional multi-sectoral General Equilibrium model for reducing the use of commercial fertilizers, with the goal of alleviating surface water pollution. Under the 500% tax rate, results showed that 0.1% of the national income was given up in order to exchange for a 3% reduction in the fertilizer application used as an intermediate input. Furthermore environmental quality would be improved by 3%, if a linear relationship existed between the changes in intermediate fertilizer use and the improvement in environmental quality.Environmental Economics and Policy,

A Complexity View of Rainfall

We show that rain events are analogous to a variety of nonequilibrium relaxation processes in Nature such as earthquakes and avalanches. Analysis of high-resolution rain data reveals that power laws describe the number of rain events versus size and number of droughts versus duration. In addition, the accumulated water column displays scale-less fluctuations. These statistical properties are the fingerprints of a self-organized critical process and may serve as a benchmark for models of precipitation and atmospheric processes.Comment: 4 pages, 5 figure

Gradient-limited surfaces

A simple scenario of the formation of geological landscapes is suggested and the respective lattice model is derived. Numerical analysis shows that the arising non-Gaussian surfaces are characterized by the scale-dependent Hurst exponent, which varies from 0.7 to 1, in agreement with experimental data.Comment: 4 pages, 5 figure