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Three Essays In Water And Climate Economics
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Book Synopsis Three Essays in Water and Climate Economics by : Nicholas Anthony Potter
Download or read book Three Essays in Water and Climate Economics written by Nicholas Anthony Potter and published by . This book was released on 2021 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This dissertation includes three chapters on the economics of climate, water resources, agricultural production, and conflict. Chapter one is an introduction. In chapter two I provide an analysis of the impact of exposure to temperature on returns to irrigated and nonirrigated cropland. Chapter three is a theoretical approach to understand the economic implications of the forfeiture of water rights for nonuse. Chapter four looks at the relationship between drought, conflict, and governance using a disaggregated spatial analysis.Chapter two is on temperature effects on snowpack-dependent surfacewater irrigated production systems in the western US. Irrigated production in that region is characterized by a diverse mix of high value crops, so producers may have more of an ability to adapt to hotter temperatures. I focus on county rental prices for irrigated and nonirrigated cropland and find that economic returns to cropland begin to decrease starting at about 25℗ʻC for irrigated acres and 20℗ʻC for nonirrigated acres.Chapter three covers the economic history that led to the creation of forfeiture policies for the nonuse of surface water rights in the western US. I develop a theory of water rights under prior appropriations with forfeiture and use it to examine why forfeiture policies were adopted in all western states that allocate water via prior appropriation. Forfeiture reduced risk to junior water rights holders and limited speculative water claims, but did so at the cost of increased transaction costs when trading water rights. While these were small when remaining water resources were available to be claimed, they are significantly more costly when all water in a basin has been allocated.In chapter four I combine a spatiotemporal grid of drought and geolocated conflict with several measures of governance characteristics to examine how governance mediates the relationship between drought and conflict. I find little evidence of a relationship between drought and conflict in Africa and Latin and South America. In countries that are more democratic or in which doing business is easier, an increase in drought reduces the likelihood of riot incidence. Other governance measures have no discernible effect.
Book Synopsis Climate, Water, and Carbon by : Francis Muamba Mulangu
Download or read book Climate, Water, and Carbon written by Francis Muamba Mulangu and published by . This book was released on 2011 with total page 103 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Abstract: This dissertation is composed of three essays. The first essay seeks to estimate the impact of climate change on household's welfare on Mt. Kilimanjaro. Unlike previous studies, the approach used in this essay limits the bias from unobservables by applying the analysis in a relatively small geographical area composed of homogeneous farmers with similar cultures, agricultural systems, and market influence. However, these farmers inhabit places that have relatively large differences in rainfall. The data for the analysis were gathered from a random sample of over 200 households in 15 villages and observation posts to measure the precipitation from rainfall were placed in each of the surveyed villages. The results indicate that Mt. Kilimanjaro's agriculture is vulnerable to precipitation variation, especially November precipitations. Farm vulnerability is heterogeneous across space, crops, and monthly precipitation. The study finds some evidence about the ability of irrigation usage to reduce crop vulnerability to precipitation change. With regards to household's welfare, we simulated crop revenue response to a median of seven Global Climate Models (GCMs), and found evidence that climate change will negatively affect household's welfare on Mt. Kilimanjaro. The second essay analyzes the potential benefits of introducing improved irrigation schemes on Mt. Kilimanjaro to help rain-dependent farmers cope with the risks of climate change. The study uses the Contingent Valuation Method (CVM) to elicit farmers' willingness to pay (WTP) for eliminating the risks of crop loss by accessing improved irrigation schemes. The study makes important contributions to both policies in Africa and the applied welfare literature. The policy contribution consists of valuation of improved irrigation in the presence of climate change risks. The applied welfare contribution consists of empirical evidence about the impact of farmers' risk beliefs, and self-protective actions on welfare valuation. The study finds that farmers' expected increase in revenues associated with the improved irrigation scheme will equal the cost of building it within 8 to 10 years. The purpose of the third essay is twofold. First, the essay seeks to determine the potential for soil carbon sequestration on Mt. Kilimanjaro. Second, the essay aims at estimating the marginal cost of sequestering soil carbon on Mt. Kilimanjaro. To answer these questions, the essay develops a Markov decision model that maximizes the net present value (NPV) of farm profit by allowing the farmer to choose optimal farm management subject to crop yield, soil carbon stock, and exogenous carbon price. The essay concludes that there is potential for economically viable carbon sequestration contracts on Mt. Kilimanjaro. At $20 per metric ton of carbon or $8.62 per hectare, 0.085 million metric tons of carbon could be sequestered per year because farmers would find it optimal to practice no-tillage cultivation of grains and retain some crop residues.
Book Synopsis Water Scarcity, Climate Change, and Water Quality by : Yongxia Cai
Download or read book Water Scarcity, Climate Change, and Water Quality written by Yongxia Cai and published by . This book was released on 2010 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This dissertation is composed of three essays investigating three aspects of future water issues. The first essay focuses on an examination of water scarcity issues caused by rapid population growth and economic development in Texas. The second essay examines water scarcity under climate change scenarios in Texas. The third essay discusses arsenic-related water quality issues in the drinking water. An integrated economic, hydrological, and environmental model is developed for the first two essays by implicitly incorporating uncertainty about future climate, water demand from all types of water use, a spatial river flow relationship, interaction between ground and surface water, institutional regulations, and the possibilities of inter-basin water transfers (IBTs). In studying water scarcity under economic growth and population growth, we find that while some cities and counties have sufficient water, there are some other cities and counties (especially Dallas, Fort Worth and Austin) facing different degrees of water scarcity problems. In studying the climate change impact, four Global Circulation Models (GCMs) with three Special Report on Emissions Scenarios (SRESs) yield consistent results. Water scarcity becomes even more severe for cities. Texas realizes slight gains in earlier periods and a net loss beginning in 2060. This study finds that twelve IBTs, if there is no climate change, and fourteen IBTs, under the climate change scenario, will be economically feasible in 2060. These IBTs can not only greatly reduce water scarcity, but also create new growth opportunity for Houston. Water is transferred from in-stream flow in source basins. There is no significant impact on other sectors except in-stream flow and water flow out to bay. In the third essay, a two-stage structural model is developed to model household risk-averting behavior with respect to arsenic-related mortality risk in the drinking water. The empirical results suggest that risk perceptions for the parents and children are important in the decision of how much to spend on water treatment, but not in whether or not to treat water. Parents in our sample displayed mixed altruism. The information generated by this dissertation can help state agencies to manage water resources and to improve water-related human health, especially health for children, more effectively and more efficiently.
Book Synopsis Three Essays on the Economics of Water Quality in the United States by : David Andrew Keiser
Download or read book Three Essays on the Economics of Water Quality in the United States written by David Andrew Keiser and published by . This book was released on 2014 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Book Synopsis Three Essays on Environmental and Natural Resource Economics by : Rong Zhou
Download or read book Three Essays on Environmental and Natural Resource Economics written by Rong Zhou and published by . This book was released on 2016 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Book Synopsis Three Essays on Environmental Economics by : Daniyar Zhumadilov
Download or read book Three Essays on Environmental Economics written by Daniyar Zhumadilov and published by . This book was released on 2021 with total page 222 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Book Synopsis Three Essays in Environmental Economics and Environmental Human Rights by : Christopher R. Jeffords
Download or read book Three Essays in Environmental Economics and Environmental Human Rights written by Christopher R. Jeffords and published by . This book was released on 2012 with total page 354 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Book Synopsis Three Essays on the Economics of the Environment, Energy and Externalities by : Ceen-Yenn Cynthia Lawell
Download or read book Three Essays on the Economics of the Environment, Energy and Externalities written by Ceen-Yenn Cynthia Lawell and published by . This book was released on 2006 with total page 159 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Book Synopsis Entropy, Water and Resources by : Horst Niemes
Download or read book Entropy, Water and Resources written by Horst Niemes and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2010-05-30 with total page 219 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book lies at the intersection of natural sciences, economics, and water en- neering and is in line with the long tradition of environmental economics at the University of Heidelberg. In the 1970s, the Neo-Austrian Capital Theory was developed using the fundamental laws of thermodynamics as a common language between the natural and social sciences. Niemes (1981) integrated the dynamic and irreversibility characteristics of the natural environment into the Neo-Austrian c- ital theory. Faber et al. (1983, 1987, 1995) then extended this interdisciplinary approach further to create a comprehensive, dynamic, environmental resource model. Over the last 3 decades, the theoretical foundations of environmental economics have been modi ed and there have been an impressive variety of applications. This book aims to reduce the gaps between economic theory, natural sciences, and engineering practice. One of the reasons these gaps exist is because economic assumptions are used to construct dynamic environmental and resource models, which are not consistent with the fundamental laws of the natural sciences. Another reason for the gap might be the distance between academic theory and real world situations. Based on an extended thermodynamic approach, the authors explain which economic assumptions are acceptable for constructing a dynamic model that is consistent with the natural sciences. In particular, the special role of water in the production and reproduction activities will be considered as an integral component.
Book Synopsis Three Essays on Environmental and Natural Resource Economics by : Qiong Juliana Wang
Download or read book Three Essays on Environmental and Natural Resource Economics written by Qiong Juliana Wang and published by . This book was released on 2010 with total page 316 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Book Synopsis Three Essays in Environmental Economics by : Koji Kotani
Download or read book Three Essays in Environmental Economics written by Koji Kotani and published by . This book was released on 2005 with total page 202 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Book Synopsis Three Essays on Climate Change Impacts, Adaptation and Mitigation in Agriculture by : Wei Wei Wang
Download or read book Three Essays on Climate Change Impacts, Adaptation and Mitigation in Agriculture written by Wei Wei Wang and published by . This book was released on 2012 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This dissertation investigates three economic aspects of the climate change issue: optimal allocation of investment between adaptation and mitigation, impacts on a ground water dependent regional agricultural economy and effects on global food insecurity. This is done in three essays by applying mathematical programming. In the first essay, a modeling study is done on optimal temporal investment between climate change adaptation and mitigation considering their relative contributions to damage reduction and diversion of funds from consumption and other investments. To conduct this research, we extend the widely used Integrated Assessment Model?DICE (Dynamic Integrated Climate Economy) adding improved adaptation modeling. The model results suggest that the joint implementation of adaptation and mitigation is welfare improving with a greater immediate role for adaptation. In the second essay, the research focuses on the ground water dependent agricultural economy in the Texas High Plains Region. A regionally detailed dynamic land allocation model is developed and applied for studying interrelationships between limited natural resources (e.g. land and groundwater), climate change, bioenergy demands and agricultural production. We find out that the effect varies regionally across hydrologically heterogeneous regions. Also, water availability has a substantial impact on feedstock mix. In terms of biofuel feedstock production, the model results show that limited water resource cannot sustain expanded corn-based ethanol production in the future. In the third essay, a Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) model is applied in an attempt to study potential impacts of climate change on global food insecurity. Our results show that climate change alters the number of food insecure people in a regionally different fashion over time. In general, the largest increase of additional food insecure population relative to the reference case (no climate change) is found in Africa and South Asia, while most of developed countries will benefit from climate change with a reduced proportion of food insecure population. In general, climate change affects world agricultural production and food security. Integrated adaptation and mitigation strategy is more effective in reducing climate change damages. However, there are synergies/trade-offs between these two options, particularly in regions with limited natural resources.
Book Synopsis Three Essays on Water Service by : Hiba Ahmed
Download or read book Three Essays on Water Service written by Hiba Ahmed and published by . This book was released on 2000 with total page 210 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Book Synopsis Essays on Environmental and Resource Economics by : Dilek Uz
Download or read book Essays on Environmental and Resource Economics written by Dilek Uz and published by . This book was released on 2016 with total page 92 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this dissertation, I present three essays that empirically study water and energy economics issues in California. The objective of the first chapter is to investigate whether and to what extent farmers' crop choice decision is affected by the irrigation water salinity. Using a highly granular land use data and random coefficients logit method, the effect of irrigation water salinity on crop choice is studied in the context of Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta-- California's major water source and home to prime agricultural farmlands. The results show that though the effect of salinity was statistically significant during the past decade, highest and most significant coefficients were those of crop class indicators and weather. This finding suggests that it is essential to reach out to the farmer community to ensure that they are fully capable of coping with expected salinity increases in medium to long run. Additionally, there is evidence for heterogeneity in farmers' response to salinity even though the area studied is relatively small. Ignoring the heterogeneity can result in misleading coefficient estimates especially for those researchers who wish to study farmer behavior in larger regions. Finally, revenue losses are simulated under baseline salinity and potential future salinity scenarios due to building a water conveying facility around the Delta, which suggests an expected revenue loss of about 19%. In the second chapter, together with Steven Buck, I question the wisdom of selecting a forecast model based on a within-sample goodness-of-fit criterion in the context of commercial and industrial (C&I) water demand in the Southern California. Initially, a set of about 350 thousand regression models are estimated using retailer level panel data featuring water consumption, price, employment, weather variables, and GDP. Out-of-sample forecasting performances of those models that rank within the top 1 \% based on various in and out-of-sample goodness-of-fit criteria were compared. We found that the models that provide the best in-sample fit are not necessarily the most favorable ones when it comes to forecasting water demand. The results indicate that on average, these models have a significantly higher absolute forecast error and a larger gap between the highest and lowest forecasts that they generate compared to the models that rank high based on out-of-sample fit criteria we defined. Finally, the third chpater investigates the effect of the 2000 California energy crisis on the take up of an engineering audit program funded by the Department of Energy, aiming operational improvements in various domains, including energy efficiency, at small and medium sized firms. Using a detailed data set containing information on both firm characteristics and the specifics of the recommendations made, a linear probability model is estimated using difference-in-difference strategy. In order to keep the treatment and the control groups as comparable as possible to ensure credible identification, the firms that applied to be audited and made the take up decision before the crisis are compared to those that applied right before the crisis and had to decide after the crisis started. The results show that the 2000 California energy crisis was associated with a 16% increase in the take up of the IAC energy efficiency recommendations. The coefficient estimate is statistically significant and robust to different model specifications.
Book Synopsis Essays on California's Water Economy by : Hilary Beth Soldati
Download or read book Essays on California's Water Economy written by Hilary Beth Soldati and published by . This book was released on 2017 with total page 93 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This dissertation consists of three essays that provide insights into the economics of water across different dimensions of the resource and its role in the state of California. The first essay examines the social welfare impacts of variation in irrigation supplies that are available through major public projects. Discussion of the value and significance of the irrigation services that are made available through the Sacramento-San Joaquin Bay Delta often focus on the immediate impacts to agricultural production and direct farm jobs. This essay, however, considers the reach of these impacts by evaluating how agriculturally based communities are effected by shortages in irrigation supplies. The second and third essays shift attention toward urban water usage. Methods of forecasting urban water demand are reconsidered and a suggestion is made for an alternative approach to evaluating the predictive power of demand models in the second essay. Finally, the third essay measures the effect of consumption analytics and social norm messaging on household decision-making around water usage. Taken together, these three essays address some of the key features of California's water economy. While there exists much research that measures the impact of precipitation shocks on agricultural regions, whether in production or in other outcomes, less research is available that specifically focuses on the impacts of variation in developed irrigation supplies. Given that developing irrigation infrastructure is oft regarded as an adaptation strategy for climate change, it is worth understanding how shocks in the supply of managed water effect individual and regional outcomes. The first essay exploits exogenous variation in the availability of California's Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta irrigation water to estimate the impact on crime rates for the agricultural counties that use this input. This research provides suggestive evidence in support of the hypothesis that reductions in the availability of this irrigation supply lead to a socially and economically significant increase in both property and violent crime rates. Empirical results support the argument that farm jobs is the mostly likely mechanism, with suggestive evidence that demographic changes are also important. Urban water managers rely heavily on forecasts of water consumption to determine management decisions and investment choices. Typical forecasts rely on simple models whose criteria for selection has little to do with their performance in predicting out-of-sample consumption levels. This essay demonstrate this issue by comparing forecast models selected on the basis of their ability to perform well in-sample versus out-of-sample. Results highlight the benefits of developing out-of-sample evaluation criteria to ascertain model performance. Using annual data on single-family residential water consumption in Southern California, this research illustrates how prediction ability varies according to model evaluation method. Using a training dataset, this analysis finds that models ranking highly on in-sample performance significantly over-estimated consumption $(10\%-25\%)$ five years out from the end of the training dataset relative to observed demands five years out from the end of the training dataset. Whereas, the top models selected using the out-of-sample criteria came within 1\% of the actual total consumption. Notably, projections of future demand for the in-sample models indicate increasing aggregate water consumption over a 25-year period, which contrasts the downward trend predicted by the out-of-sample models. The third essay estimates how household-level water consumption may be impacted by the distribution of Home Water Use Reports (HWURs) by Dropcountr (DC), a digital and web-based consumption analytics platform. Similar to Opower in the energy sector, DC offers social comparison, consumption analytics, and conservation information to residential accounts, primarily through digital communications. Having initiated relationships with several California utilities, as well as major Texas and Colorado providers, the effect of these programs may be measured and will contribute to three areas of academic literature: 1) the study of social norms and moral suasion on consumption behavior, in general; 2) the effects of such methods in the water sector, in specific; and 3) understanding alternatives to price mechanisms in demand-side management of water resources. This research discusses the potential of this type of information to generate measurable effects of interest, both to researchers and to water managers alike. Particular focus will be given to results with a mid-sized California utility and a major Texas provider. Early results indicate an economically and statistically significant $5-8\%$ and $3-4\%$ reduction in average monthly household water consumption for the California and the Texas utility, respectively, for the typical household under treatment of the DC program.
Book Synopsis Essays on Water Resource Economics by : Daniel A. Brent
Download or read book Essays on Water Resource Economics written by Daniel A. Brent and published by . This book was released on 2013 with total page 167 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A canonical example in economics of the difference between marginal and total value is the diamond-water paradox. The high price of diamonds is derived from their rarity; whereas the price of water is low due to its abundance, even though it is essential to sustain human life. Scarcity, rather than abundance, better characterizes water availability for many people and this dissertation studies how applied economic principles can be utilized to manage water resources. The first chapter estimate the costs of water volatility in the agricultural sector through a hedonic analysis of heterogeneous water rights. Security for water rights is capitalized into the value of agricultural land, which informs the magnitude and distributional welfare effects of droughts. Tests for an endogenous changepoint fails find a time-varying price premium, indicating that the costs of increased water volatility due to climate change are not manifested in agricultural property markets. The second and third chapters focus on economic and behavioral incentives in urban municipal water demand. Chapter 2 presents a disaggregated model of water demand to separately estimate intensive and extensive margin demand elasticity. Identification is achieved through a novel method merging remotely sensed satellite data on vegetative cover with water metering records. The time series of vegetative cover captures changes in landscape over time and identifies the extensive margin elasticity - a parameter that has only been estimated implicitly through the difference in short run and long run demand. Households that maintain green lawns are less responsive to prices than households either change landscapes or have a mixed landscape. Higher water rates increase the probability of converting to low water-intensive landscapes, which in turn is a major driver of long-run demand. The extensive margin with respect to changing landscapes comprises 7%-48% of total elasticity for households with significant outdoor water use. The final chapter examines the impact of non-pecuniary incentives stemming from the behavioral economics literature on water demand. In a randomized field experiment social comparisons are found to significantly decrease water demand with substantial heterogeneity both across and within utilities. The utility with the highest average treatment effect saved three times as much water in percentage terms as the utility with the lowest average treatment effect. Higher users are more responsive to the program and there are important interactions between social norms and existing utility conservation programs. Water resources face stress due to population growth, rising incomes, and climate change and these stressors will only increase in the future. This dissertation addresses several key issues in agricultural and residential that aim to increase knowledge and aid public policy of managing water resources in times of scarcity.
Book Synopsis The Economic Approach to Environmental Policy by : A. Myrick Freeman
Download or read book The Economic Approach to Environmental Policy written by A. Myrick Freeman and published by Edward Elgar Publishing. This book was released on 1998 with total page 520 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: These papers cover such topics as: the effects of environmental and resources policies on income distribution; the incorporation of distribution effects into environmental policy analysis; the role of economic incentives in environmental policy; the economic valuation of environment changes; and the consideration of risk and uncertainty in economic valuation and policy making. The book also includes papers on the ethical basis of environmental economics and the economic approach to environmental policy.
