A Benefit Cost Analysis of a Soil Erosion Control Program for the Northern Watershed of Lake Chicot, Arkansas

Lake Chicot, a 5,025-acre oxbow lake created by the ancient meandering of the Mississippi River, is located near the town of Lake Village in Chicot County of southeastern Arkansas (Fig. 1). Today the lake is separated into a northern basin of 1,154 acres and a southern basin of 3,871 acres by a levee maintained by the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission (Fig. 2). The entire lake once offered excellent fishing and recreational benefits. But with channelization in the drainage basin and final closure of the Cypress Creek gap along the Mississippi River levee in 1920, drainage and flood waters from approximately 350 square miles of agricultural lands were diverted into Connerly Bayou and thus, ultimately, into Lake Chicot

Expansion Potential for Irrigation within the Mississippi Delta Region

17.6 million acres, or 73 percent, of the Mississippi Delta Region is currently cropland and possesses the physical characteristics of slope, texture and soil type which are recommended for irrigation. Economic feasibility of expanding irrigation by flood, furrow and center pivot methods were examined under 24 scenarios representing two sets of crop prices, yield levels, production costs, opportunity costs and six crop rotations. Irrigation was economically feasible for 56 to 100 percent of the cropland across all scenarios. Approximately 88 percent of the cropland can be economically irrigated with flood or furrow in its present form, 8 percent yield highest net returns if furrow irrigated following land forming and 4 percent can be economically irrigated only with center pivot systems

The Costs and Benefits of Soil Erosion Control in the North Lake Chicot Watershed

Lake Chicot is divided by a levee into two basins, the high quality northern basin and the extremely polluted southern basin. Water quality in the northern basin of Lake Chicot is diminishing due to soil erosion. Costs for alternative control programs for the seventeen fare, 11,470 acre northern watershed were estimated. Twenty-nine combinations of rotations and best management practices were evaluated. Soil loss can be reduced almost 25 percent from 4.2 tons per acre to 3.2 tons per acre, while increasing net returns to farmers from $83.94 per acre to$107.28 per acre by altering present cropping patterns. A prohibition on fall plowing would result in an average net return of $106.28 per acre and reduce average soil loss to 2.9 tons per acre. An average soil loss restriction would be the most cost-effective policy, exclusive of administrative costs. Benefits of erosion control were estimated by the difference between the value of recreational participation on the northern basin and the value for the southern basin. Control programs were highly cost-effective

Projections of Agricultural and Fish and Wildlife Water Demand in the Ouachita River Basin: A Linear Programming Approach

The availability of an abundant water supply has been a major resource of the Ouachita River Basin. In recent years, water requirements for a number of uses have increased, raising the concern that future water shortages could occur in the basin. The purpose of the study reported here was to estimate future water demand for irrigation, commercial fisheries, and fish and wildlife uses

Visitor congestion at Oregon Caves National Monument

Published October 1974. Facts and recommendations in this publication may no longer be valid. Please look for up-to-date information in the OSU Extension Catalog: http://extension.oregonstate.edu/catalo

No. 4 - Agriculture and the WTO: Subsidies in the Cross Hairs

September 2003 saw trade talks pursuing the Doha Development Agenda at the Cancún WTO Ministerial Meeting collapse, primarily over the disagreements between rich and developing countries regarding agriculture. Despite the great pessimism that ensued, on August 1, 2004, WTO negotiators from 147 countries announced a breakthrough in negotiations to liberalize trade in agricultural products. The most striking aspect of this new framework agreement is the proposed elimination of agricultural subsidies by rich countries in return for developing countries opening up their markets to more imports. At the same time, WTO dispute resolution panels have delivered stunning decisions against the U.S. cotton subsidy program and the European Union\u27s sugar subsidies. Clearly agriculture trade policy will be a pivotal issue determining the failure or success of the Doha round. This conference featured noted experts from senior levels of government, the private sector, and the legal profession addressing current developments in multilateral negotiations and the WTO cases on agriculture and analyzing their impact on the future of the world agricultural market. It was presented on November 16, 2004, at the University of Georgia School of Law by the Dean Rusk Center–International, Comparative, and Graduate Legal Studies and the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences

MEASURING A SOCIAL COST OF ENVIRONMENTAL POLLUTANTS THROUGH THE USE OF AN INFORMATION VARIABLE

Avoidance costs of pollutants are estimated by introducing an information variable into the recreationist's demand model, hypothesizing a discontinuance or decrease in their activity as information concerning contamination is received. The decrease in recreationists consumer's surplus estimates a social cost of environmental pollutants. Mercury and Oregon's pheasant hunters are examined