摘要:

Water demand equations are estimated using the most current American Water Works Association (1984) survey of 430 (of 600 largest) U.S. utilities. The data set was augmented by monthly rainfall and temperature data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's climatological data. Demographic data were obtained from the U.S. Department of Commerce (1988). Besides the usual endogeneity problems involving block price structures this paper also examines the possible endogeneity of conservation and education programs. Three types of models were used: a marginal price model, an average price model, and Shin's (1985) price perception model. The results generally show that price elasticity is higher in the South and the West. Conservation does not appear to reduce water use, but public education appears to have reduced water usage in the West. The Shin (1985) tests in this study indicate that consumers react more to average than marginal prices in all regions.

ISSN:0043-1397    

DOI:10.1029/91WR02852

年代:1992

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

This paper points out how a system of marketable discount coupons applied to the sale of water by an agency can satisfy both redistributional and revenue constraints without compromise to economic efficiency, in effect creating marketable multipart pricing. This procedure achieves marginal cost pricing for each user while decreasing the average consumer's expenditures on water. Efficiency would obtain both in allocation among users and in overall usage. No information on consumer demand for water is required. A useful by‐product is market revelation of the marginal value of incremental water usage, thereby also shedding light on the value of incremental water project

ISSN:0043-1397    

DOI:10.1029/91WR02827

年代:1992

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

Targeting cropland retirement programs to reduce agricultural nonpoint source pollution is accomplished by employing disaggregated information about physical and economic factors that influence the benefits and costs of adopting specific erosion control practices on specific land parcels. The agricultural nonpoint source (AGNPS) model is used in a Minnesota watershed to simulate the relative effectiveness of alternative targeting schemes with respect to budget outlays for annual payments to landowners, reduction in downstream sediment yield and nutrient loss, and reduction in on‐site erosion. Cost‐effectiveness increased with information on economic factors (the opportunity cost of retiring a parcel of land) as well as on physical factors (contribution of a parcel to downstream sediment yield). The marginal cost‐effectiveness of all schemes decreased as the enrolled proportion of watershed land incr

ISSN:0043-1397    

DOI:10.1029/91WR02713

年代:1992

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

A successive approximation linear quadratic regulator (SALQR) method with management periods is combined with a finite element groundwater flow and transport simulation model to determine optimal time‐varying groundwater pump‐and‐treat reclamation policies. Management periods are groups of simulation time steps during which the pumping policy remains constant. In an example problem, management periods reduced the total computational demand, as measured by the CPU time, by as much as 85% compared to the time needed for the SALQR solution without management periods. Conversely, the optimal costs increased as the number of times that the control can change is reduced. With two simulation periods per management period, the optimal cost increased by less than 1% compared to the optimal cost with no management periods, yet the computational work was reduced by a third. The optimal policies, including the number and locations of wells, changed significantly with the number of management periods. Complexity analysis revealed that the SALQR algorithm with management periods can significantly reduce the computational requirements for nonsteady optimization of groundwater reclamation and other management applica

ISSN:0043-1397    

DOI:10.1029/91WR02826

年代:1992

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

A heuristic approach based on facility location theory effectively augments groundwater quality monitoring configurations through the strategic siting of additional wells. The approach is an alternative to variance‐based schemes previously established for the augmentation problem. The method developed herein is practical in that it (1) is relatively easily understood, (2) is not difficult to implement and solve, and (3) does not require a large number of preexisting observation points. The approach has been applied to a case study involving a landfill‐contaminated buried valley aquifer in southwest Ohio. Configurations derived by the heuristic approach exhibit two key characteristics: (1) location of wells near areas of high estimated contaminant concentration and (2) interwell separation distances that facilitate areal plume cover

ISSN:0043-1397    

DOI:10.1029/91WR02851

年代:1992

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

The focus of this special section is the conceptual and empirical issues regarding benefit transfer applications. A benefit transfer is the application of monetary values obtained from a particular nonmarket goods analysis to an alternative or secondary policy decision setting. The papers address the ongoing development of the procedures for benefit transfers through a case study approach. This paper attempts to focus the discussion of benefit transfers and highlight the issues discussed in each of the papers.

ISSN:0043-1397    

DOI:10.1029/91WR02590

年代:1992

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

Benefit transfer has been an ongoing, practical analysis for years in legal proceedings and government policy analyses where timely benefit estimates are critically dependent on the use of existing data. Most benefit transfer studies to date have been conducted behind closed doors and have not been open to scholarly review, and no systematic research agenda has been established to determine whether benefit transfer estimates are valid for public policy analyses. In this paper we propose a systematic, conceptual foundation for conducting benefit transfer studies, and suggest a research agenda to identify conditions under which valid benefit transfer estimates can be derived. We conclude, however, that this research agenda must be accompanied by improved conduct and reporting of original valuation studies before benefit transfer can become a widely used tool in public policy analyses.

ISSN:0043-1397    

DOI:10.1029/91WR02591

年代:1992

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

This study quantifies local improvements in environmental quality from controlling effluents in the pulp and paper industry. Although it is confined to a single industry, this study is the first effort to assess the actual net benefits of the Clean Water Act pollution control program. An assessment of water quality benefits requires linking regulatory policy, technical effects, and behavioral responses. Regulatory policies mandate specific controls that influence the quantity and nature of effluent discharges. We identify a subset of stream segments suitable for analysis, describe water quality simulations and control cost calculations under alternative regulatory scenarios, assign feasible water uses to each segment based on water quality, and determine probable upper bounds for the willingness of beneficiaries to pay. Because the act imposes uniform regulations that do not account for differences in compliance costs, existing stream quality, contributions of other effluent sources, and recreation potential, the relation between water quality benefits and costs varies widely across sites. This variation suggests that significant positive net benefits have probably been achieved in some cases, but we conclude that the costs of the Clean Water Act as a whole exceed likely benefits by a significant margin.

ISSN:0043-1397    

DOI:10.1029/91WR02593

年代:1992

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

The Environmental Protection Agency has used existing studies to estimate the benefits of environmental improvements associated with several regulatory proposals. The problems encountered in using existing studies to measure the benefits of water quality improvements are investigated in this paper. We propose criteria for selecting transfer studies and present a case study of a transfer. Our research indicates that although benefit transfer may offer promise, the fact that existing studies were not designed for transfer places severe limitations on the current effectiveness of transfer. Suggestions for future research are presented to address these limitations.

ISSN:0043-1397    

DOI:10.1029/91WR02592

年代:1992

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

Benefit transfer methods increasingly are being applied to value nonmarketed resources for both policy evaluation and natural resource damage litigation. This paper illustrates the need for guidelines for deciding when benefit transfer methods can be used to value changes in environmental resources. It begins by discussing applied economic modeling perspectives and relating them to benefit transfers as tools for evaluating policy. It reviews the history of benefit transfers and summarizes how they are typically undertaken, including the influence of the analyst's judgments on their outcome, by comparing the development of two different analyses that use benefit transfers to consider the same issue: estimating the benefits from limiting industrial effluents discharged into specific rivers. It proposes an agenda for future benefit transfer research: devising strategies for extending available benefit transfer theory, learning from existing research, and formulating transferable versus “portable” modeling strateg

ISSN:0043-1397    

DOI:10.1029/91WR02594

年代:1992

数据来源: WILEY