ECONOMIC INCENTIVES TO IMPROVE WATER QUALITY IN AGRICULTURAL LANDSCAPES: SOME NEW VARIATIONS ON OLD IDEAS

The Wadeable Streams Assessment was completed in 2004 with the aim of evaluating the biological condition of streams while also collecting data on physical and chemical stressors of the system. The characteristics of the process by which agricultural sources contribute to poor water quality creates difficult challenges for the design and use of policy instruments generally, and economic incentives in particular. The degree of this attenuation will depend on many physical features, including slope, soils, vegetation, and weather. Further complicating this problem in the case of agricultural emission is the fact that the degree of this attenuation can depend on land use choices made by others in watershed. There are many ways such a system could work, but one way these requirements could be operationalized is via a point-based system where conservation practices are assigned a point value based on their effectiveness at reducing emissions from a field.