This research analyzes two groundwater conservation policies in the Kansas High Plains located within the Ogallala aquifer: 1) cost-share assistance to increase irrigation efficiency; and 2) incentive payments to convert irrigated crop production to dryland crop production. To compare the...

The paper estimates the impacts of risk reducing government programs on the use of conservation practices in agriculture. Specifically, conservation tillage or no-till agriculture can be used to reduce risk from weather shocks while subsidized crop insurance and disaster payments also reduce...

Over the past several decades, market-based approaches to natural resource management have received increased attention as a means to cost-effectively achieve environmental quality goals. Following on what has been hailed a success for reducing air pollution, water quality trading (WQT) has more...

Recent studies have suggested that green technologies may be a cost effective way to manage urban runoff. Literature has also suggests that there needs to be a greater empirical basis to estimate the benefits associated with social values associated with urban trees; we therefore estimate...

Agriculture has recently been noted as a provider of non-market environmental benefits in addition to its traditional recognition as a source of negative externalities from polluting inputs. In this paper, a general equilibrium framework is used to determine optimal land subsidies and input...

Depleting water resources is a widespread problem across the Kansas High Plains aquifer. The value of irrigation is accentuated due to lack of surface water and low precipitation in western Kansas. Accelerated groundwater withdrawals for irrigation caused a further decline in the saturated...

A class of dynamic models is developed to assess potential gains from management of groundwater in arid and semi-arid regions in the presence of technical change. The aquifer is a common-pool resource (CPR) because users typically hold the right to pump groundwater but do not own the water...

Irrigation water demand is estimated using field-level panel data from Kansas over 16 years. The cost of pumping varies over time due to changes in energy prices and across space due to differences in the depth to water. Exploiting this variation allows us to estimate the demand elasticity while...

While there is substantial evidence that nonpoint sources have lower nutrient reduction costs than point sources, experience with water quality trading (WQT) reveals a common theme: little or no trading activity. The success of WQT seems, in part, to depend on the structure of the market created...