Spatial and Temporal Intricacies of Natural Resource Use: Studies in Water, Forests, and Hydrocarbons

This dissertation examines spatial and temporal impacts of natural resource use. The second chapter integrates hydrological and economic systems to examine the impact of drought on these two systems and explores the spatial impact of policies aimed to mitigate the drought impact. The systems dynamics model developed for this chapter simultaneously considers the physical hydrology in the Middle Rio Grande water basin in New Mexico, the engineered water management system, and a behavioral model of residential water demand for three cities: Albuquerque, Rio Rancho, and Santa Fe, New Mexico. The simulation results showed that droughts that occur in later periods, when there are larger populations, have more substantial impacts. Later and longer drought increases per capita water consumption, reduces aquifer volume, and in general reduces river flow. However, increased public awareness can outweigh the stress on water resources due to population growth. Furthermore, increased awareness and decreased population in one city results in to decreased groundwater pumping costs in another city. The third chapter utilizes survey-based contingent evaluation data to investigate public support among urban Albuquerque, NM households for restoration of a watershed that impacts the urban water supply security, but is spatially removed from the urban area. Econometric results show evidence of both significant public support for forest restoration and the importance of accounting for respondent uncertainty. Econometric estimation results indicate that even if people live in a distant area they are willing to pay for forest restoration. The fourth chapter examines the tradeoff between natural resource development and ecosystem services. The model developed in this chapter is within the system dynamics framework but integrates spatial information too. A hypothetical example is undertaken for the Piceance Basin in Colorado that simultaneously estimates the economic benefits from unconventional natural gas production and the impacts of this land use change on the collocated Mule Deer and fish population and competing direct and consumptive uses of nearby water supplies. Simulation results show that mineral development simultaneously produces private benefit through the sale of produced mineral and social cost through the degraded ecological services. Price uncertainty further aggravates the problem

Extension Service and Farm Productivity in Nepalese Agriculture

Agriculture extension services have been recognized as a complementary input for increasing farm productivity. Nepal has developed wide network of agriculture extension service over the last two decades. We examine the impact of agriculture extension service on farm productivity in Nepalese agriculture using a switching regression model. Using a panel data set obtained from the two waves of Nepal Living Standard Survey, we find that there is a significant difference in the farm productivity between the farmers who receive the extensive service and those who do not. Despite the benefits of agriculture extensive service, we identify underutilization of the available services as one of the major problems of extension service in Nepal

Household-level Effects of Electricity on Income

This paper studies the effect of electricity on income, using the Nepal Living Standards Survey-III (NLSSIII), carried out in the years 2010-11. To account for endogeneity issues, we use Three Stage Least Squares (3SLS), and Two Stage Probit Least Squares (2SPLS) models. We find that causality runs both ways. That is, income explains whether a household is connected to electricity, but also, a household being connected to electricity has a very large and significant effect on income. A household being connected to electricity increases consumption per capita by 18% on average