Keywords
adoption, land use, land management, water quality improvement, heterogeneity, farming community, natural resource policy, great barrier reef
Start Date
1-7-2012 12:00 AM
Abstract
There is growing recognition that coastal water quality is interdependent with agricultural management in coastal catchments. Economic incentive-based instruments can be used to internalize the negative externalities from coastal water pollution. In this paper we assess a performance-based instrument for promoting the adoption of management practices for water quality improvement in heterogeneous sugarcane farming communities in the Great Barrier Reef (GBR) region, with emphasis on regional income and dissolved inorganic nitrogen (DIN) delivery impacts. We combine financial and environmental analyses of farming systems at the paddock scale with a mathematical modelling approach at the farm scale, differentiating for three farm typologies, aggregated to the catchment scale. Management practice adoption rates are assessed by exploring how different types of farmers are likely to respond to economic incentive-based instruments, using a nutrient accounting system to institute both levies and bonuses that, respectively, penalise pollution and provide incentives for reducing DIN export.
Economic incentive-based instruments for the adoption of management options for water quality improvement in heterogeneous sugarcane farming communities
There is growing recognition that coastal water quality is interdependent with agricultural management in coastal catchments. Economic incentive-based instruments can be used to internalize the negative externalities from coastal water pollution. In this paper we assess a performance-based instrument for promoting the adoption of management practices for water quality improvement in heterogeneous sugarcane farming communities in the Great Barrier Reef (GBR) region, with emphasis on regional income and dissolved inorganic nitrogen (DIN) delivery impacts. We combine financial and environmental analyses of farming systems at the paddock scale with a mathematical modelling approach at the farm scale, differentiating for three farm typologies, aggregated to the catchment scale. Management practice adoption rates are assessed by exploring how different types of farmers are likely to respond to economic incentive-based instruments, using a nutrient accounting system to institute both levies and bonuses that, respectively, penalise pollution and provide incentives for reducing DIN export.
