Opportunity Costs of Residential Best Management Practices for Stormwater Runoff Control
Publication: Journal of Water Resources Planning and Management
Volume 132, Issue 2
Abstract
Excess stormwater runoff is a serious problem in a large number of urban areas, causing flooding, water pollution, groundwater recharge deficits, and ecological damage to urban streams. Solutions currently proposed to deal with this problem often involve large centralized infrastructure and high expense. Phase II of the Environmental Protection Agency’s stormwater regulation is now requiring smaller communities nationwide to make important decisions about the potentially expensive management of excess stormwater runoff. This paper builds on research investigating the use of economic incentives to promote dispersed placement of smaller-scale best management practices (BMPs) for water detention to control excess runoff. We estimate a hedonic price function for houses in the area of a pilot project, and include the estimated part worth of yard area as our lower bound for opportunity cost in the cost function of the residential BMPs. We then show the effects of the inclusion of opportunity cost on two potentially useful incentive-based policy instruments available to communities.
Get full access to this article
View all available purchase options and get full access to this article.
Acknowledgments
The writers would like to thank Haynes C. Goddard for initial inspiration for this research, and David Scrogin and two anonymous reviewers for their insightful comments and direction.
References
Baumol, W. J., and Oates, W. E. (1988). The theory of environmental policy, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, U.K.
Doll, A., and Lindsey, G. (1999). “Credits bring economic incentives for onsite stormwater management.” Watershed Wet Weather Tech. Bull., 4(1), 12–15.
Doll, A., Scodari, P. F., and Lindsey, G. (1998). “Credits as economic incentives for on-site stormwater management: Issues and examples.” Proc., U.S. Environmental Protection Agency National Conf. on Retrofit Opportunities for Water Resource Protection in Urban Environments, Chicago, 113–117.
Eheart, J. W. (1980). “Cost-efficiency of transferrable discharge permits for the control of BOD discharges.” Water Resour. Res., 16(6), 980–986.
EPA. (1996). “Draft framework for watershed-based trading.” Rep. No. EPA 800-R-96-001, Office of Water, Washington, D.C.
Fullerton, D., and Wolverton, A. (1999). “The case for a two-part instrument: Presumptive tax and environmental subsidy.” Environmental and public economics: Essays in honor of Wallace E. Oates, A. Panagariya, P. Portney, and R. Schwab, eds., Edward Elgar, Cheltenham, U.K.
Fullerton, D., and Wolverton, A. (2003). “The two-part instrument in a second-best world.” Working Paper Series, NCEE, EPA.
Griffiths, W. E., Hill, R. C., and Judge, G. G. (1993). Learning and practicing econometrics, John Wiley and Sons, New York.
Haab, T. C., and McConnell, K. E. (2002). Valuing environmental and natural resources: The econometrics of non-market valuation, Edward Elgar, Northampton, Mass.
Heaney, J. P., Sample, D., and Wright, L. (2002). “Costs of urban stormwater control.” Rep. No. EPA-600/R-02/021; NTIS No. PB2003103299, National Risk Management Research Laboratory, Cincinnati.
Leggett, C. G., and Bockstael, N. E. (2000). “Evidence of the effects of water quality on residential land prices.” J. Envir. Econom. Manage., 39, 121–144.
Mooney, S. N., and Eisgruber, L. M. (2001). “The influence of riparian protection measures on residential property values: The case of the Oregon plan for salmon watersheds.” J. Real Estate Finance Econ., 22(2/3), 273–286.
Ohio Environmental Protection Agency (OEPA). (1994). “Biological and water quality study of Mill Creek and tributaries.” Technical Rep. No. SWS/1993-12-9, Columbus, Ohio.
Parikh, P., Taylor, M. A., Hoagland, T., Thurston, H., and Shuster, W. (2006). “Application of market mechanisms and incentives to reduce stormwater runoff: An integrated hydrologic, economic and legal approach.” Environ. Sci. Policy, in press.
Pigou, A. C. (1962). The economics of welfare, 4th Ed., Macmillan, London.
Prince George’s County, Maryland, Department of Environmental Resources. (2000). “Low-impact development: An integrated design approach.” Rep. No. EPA 841-B-00-003.
Sample, D. J., Heaney, J. P., Wright, L. T., Fan, C., Lai, F., and Field, R. (2003). “Costs of best management practices and associated land for urban stormwater control.” J. Water Resour. Plan. Manage., 129(1), 59–68.
Schueler, T. R. (1987). “Controlling urban runoff: A practical manual for planning designing urban BMPs.” Washington Metropolitan Water Resources Planning Board Rep., Washington, D.C.
Skertic, M. (1997). “Home income predictor of school test results.” Cincinnati Enquirer, Nov. 30. 1997 ⟨http://enquirer.com/schools/highlights.html⟩.
Tchobanoglous, G. (1981). Wastewater engineering: Collection and pumping of wastewater, McGraw-Hill, New York.
Thurston, H. W., Goddard, H. C., Szlag, D., and Lemberg, B. (2003). “Controlling stormwater runoff with tradable allowances for impervious surfaces.” J. Water Resour. Plan. Manage., 129(5), 409–418.
Tietenberg, T. (2000). Environmental and natural resource economics, Addison-Wesley, Reading, Mass.
Wolman, M. G., and Miller, J. P. (1960). “Magnitude and frequency of forces in geomorphic processes.” J. Geol., 68(1), 54–74.
Woodward, R. T., and Kaiser, R. A. (2002). “Market structures for U.S. water quality trading.” Rev. Agric. Econ., 24, 366–383.
Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Copyright
© 2006 ASCE.
History
Received: Oct 21, 2004
Accepted: Jul 14, 2005
Published online: Mar 1, 2006
Published in print: Mar 2006
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.