Agroeconomic Analysis of Nitrate Crop Source Reductions
Publication: Journal of Water Resources Planning and Management
Volume 139, Issue 5
Abstract
This paper presents an agroeconomic approach to assess the economic impact of improving nitrogen and irrigation management practices in California’s Tulare Lake Basin and the Salinas Valley. The approach employs a self-calibrated mathematical programming model with a constant elasticity of substitution production function and two nests: one for irrigation and one for nitrogen. Agricultural crop yields are maintained as a worst-case for improving nitrogen use efficiency. Small reductions () in nitrate load to groundwater can be achieved at relatively low costs. Load reductions of 50% may require more costly nitrogen management practices and a broader education strategy with higher reductions in farm net revenues and irrigated area. Other policy instruments such as a tax and levees on applied nitrogen may help reduce groundwater load and raise revenues for alternate drinking water supplies in affected areas. The model also provides further evidence that it is possible to integrate agronomic and economic models that account for substitutability of applied nitrogen and water in agricultural production for policy analysis.
Get full access to this article
View all available purchase options and get full access to this article.
Acknowledgments
The authors appreciate comments and insights from the Interagency Task Force meetings for the Nitrates in Groundwater Project in California. The authors also appreciate the input from Allan Hollander for facilitating land use information from the California Augmented Multisource Landcover Map (CAML), and research assistance led by Anna Fryjoff-Hung on cartography and compiling of crop yield information and nitrogen fertilizer application rates from the literature.
References
Agricultural Issues Center (AIC). (2009). “Measure of California agriculture.” Univ. of California Davis, Davis, CA 〈http://aic.ucdavis.edu/publications/moca/mocamenu.htm〉 (Mar. 1, 2011).
Broadbent, F. E., and Carlton, A. B. (1978). “Field trials with isotopically labeled nitrogen fertilizer.” Nitrogen in the environment, D. R. Nielson and J. G. MacDonald, eds., Academic Press, New York, 1–42.
Burrow, K., Stork, S. V., and Dubrovsy, N. M. (1998). “Nitrate and pesticide in ground water in the Eastern San Joaquin Valley, California: Occurance and trends. United States Geological Survey.”, US Department of Interior, US Geological Service, Sacramento, CA, 33.
Canada, H. E., Honeycutt, K., Jessoe, K., Jenkins, M. W., and Lund, J. R. (2012). “Regulatory and funding options for nitrate groundwater contamination.” Technical rep. 8, Addressing Nitrate in California’s drinking water with a focus on Tulare Lake Basin and Salinas Valley Groundwater—Report for the state water resources control board report to the Legislature, Center for Watershed Sciences, Univ. of California, Davis, CA.
Daberkow, S., Ribaudo, M., and Doering, O. (2008). “Economic implications of public policies to change agricultural nitrogen use and management.” Nitrogen in agricultural systems, J. S. Schepers and W. R. Raun, eds., American Society of Agronomy, Crop Science Society of America, Soil Science Society of America, Madison, WI.
Department of Water Resources (DWR). (2003). “California’s groundwater—Bulletin 118 update 2003.” Sacramento, CA 〈http://www.groundwater.water.ca.gov/bulletin118/update2003/index.cfm〉 (Jun. 1, 2009).
Department of Water Resources (DWR). (2009). “California water plan update 2009.” Sacramento, CA 〈http://www.waterplan.water.ca.gov/cwpu2009/〉 (Dec. 1, 2010).
Dzurella, K. N., et al. (2012). “Nitrogen source reduction to protect groundwater quality.” Technical rep. 3, Addressing Nitrate in California’s drinking water with a focus on Tulare Lake Basin and Salinas Valley Groundwater—Report for the state water resources control board report to the Legislature, Center for Watershed Sciences, Univ. of California, Davis, CA.
Harter, T. et al. (2012). “Addressing nitrate in California’s drinking water with a focus on Tulare Lake Basin and Salinas Valley groundwater.” Rep. for the state water resources control board report to the Legislature, Center for Watershed Sciences, Univ. of California, Davis, CA 〈http://groundwaternitrate.ucdavis.edu〉 (Jan. 1, 2012).
Hartz, T. K. (1994). “A quick test procedure for soil nitrate-nitrogen.” Commun. Soil Sci. Plant Anal., 25(5–6), 511–515.
Hatchett, S. (1997). Description of CVPM, U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, Sacramento, CA.
Helfand, G. E., and House, B. W. (1995). “Regulating nonpoint-source pollution under heterogeneous conditions.” Am. J. Agric. Econ., 77(4), 1024–1032.
Howitt, R. E. (1995). “Positive mathematical programming.” Am. J. Agric. Econ., 77(2), 329–342.
Howitt, R. E., Medellin-Azuara, J., MacEwan, D., and Lund, J. R. (2012). “Calibrating disaggregate economic models of agricultural production and water management.” Environ. Model. Software, 38, 244–258.
Jaynes, E. T. (1957). “Information theory and statistical mechanics.” Phys. Rev., 106(4), 620–630.
Johnson, S. L., Adams, R. M., and Perry, G. M. (1991). “The on-farm costs of reducing groundwater pollution.” Am. J. Agric. Econ., 73(4), 1063–1073.
Knapp, K. C., and Schwabe, K. A. (2008). “Spatial dynamics of water and nitrogen management in irrigated agriculture.” Am. J. Agric. Econ., 90(2), 524–539.
Larson, D. M., Helfand, G. E., and House, B. W. (1996). “Second-best tax policies to reduce nonpoint source pollution.” Am. J. Agric. Econ., 78(4), 1108–1117.
Letey, J., Jarrell, W. M., and Valoras, N. (1982). “Nitrogen and water-uptake patterns and growth of plants at various minimum solution nitrate concentrations.” J. Plant Nutr., 5(2), 73–89.
Loague, K., Bernknopf, R., Green, R., and Giambelluca, T. (1996). “Uncertainty of groundwater vulnerability assessments for agricultural regions in Hawaii: Review.” J. Environ. Qual., 25(3), 475–490.
Medellin-Azuara, J., Howitt, R., and Harou, J. (2012a). “Predicting farmer responses to water pricing, rationing and subsidies assuming profit maximizing investment in irrigation technology.” Agric. Water Manage., 108, 73–82.
Medellin-Azuara, J., Howitt, R. E., MacEwan, D., and Lund, J. R. (2012b). “Economic impacts of climate-related yield changes in California.” Clim. Change, 109(S1), S387–S405.
Meyer, R., and Marcum, D. (1998). “Potato yield, petiole nitrogen, and soil nitrogen response to water and nitrogen.” Agron. J., 90(3), 420–429.
Paris, Q., and Howitt, R. E. (1998). “An analysis of ill-posed production problems using maximum entropy.” Am. J. Agric. Econ., 80(1), 124–138.
Rosenstock, T., Liptzin, D., Six, J., and Tomich, T. (2013). “Nitrogen fertilizer use in California: Assessing the data, trends and a way forward.” California agriculture, 67(1), 68–79.
Shannon, C. E. (1948). “A mathematical theory of communication.” Bell System Tech. J., 27, 379–423.
Stark, J. C., Jarrell, W. M., Letey, J., and Valoras, N. (1983). “Nitrogen use efficiency of trickle-irrigated tomatoes receiving continuous injection of Nitrogen.” Agron. J., 75(4), 672–676.
U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). (2011a). “National Resource Conservation Service crop nutrient tool.” Washington, DC 〈http://plants.usda.gov/npk/main〉 (Sep. 1, 2011).
U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). (2011b). “Quick stats.” Washington, DC 〈http://www.nass.usda.gov/Data_and_Statistics/Quick_Stats/index.asp〉 (Sep. 2011).
Vickner, S. S., Hoag, D. L., Frasier, W. M., and Ii, J. C. A. (1998). “A dynamic economic analysis of nitrate leaching in corn production under nonuniform irrigation conditions.” Am. J. Agric. Econ., 80(2), 397–408.
Ward, M. H., et al. (2005). “Drinking-water nitrate and health: Recent findings and research needs.” Environ. Health Perspect., 113(11).
Wu, J., Mapp, H. P., and Bernardo, D. J. (1994). “A dynamic analysis of the impact of water quality policies on irrigation investment and crop choice decisions.” J. Agric. Appl. Econ., 26(2), 506–525.
Zhang, M., Geng, S., and Smallwood, K. S. (1998). “Assessing groundwater nitrate contamination for resource and landscape management.” Ambio, 27(3), 170–174.
Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Journal of Water Resources Planning and Management
Volume 139 • Issue 5 • September 2013
Pages: 501 - 511
Copyright
© 2013 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Jan 26, 2012
Accepted: Jul 26, 2012
Published online: Aug 17, 2012
Discussion open until: Jan 17, 2013
Published in print: Sep 1, 2013
Authors
Metrics & Citations
Metrics
Citations
Download citation
If you have the appropriate software installed, you can download article citation data to the citation manager of your choice. Simply select your manager software from the list below and click Download.