ABSTRACT:
This paper estimates the cost of reducing soil erosion with Riparian buffers. The paper explores how the cost of a ton of soil erosion reduction varies across site characteristics in a watershed, including field shape and size, tillage method, and soil type. The methods are used to show how watershed managers may target funds to high and low cost sites and regions within a watershed The results suggest that the costs of reducing soil erosion with Riparian bufers are lower when buffers are applied to conventionally tilled fields, and that the costs of buffers are comparable to the costs of no-till The relationship between buffer size, drainage area size, and effectiveness is explored. The paper shows how Riparian buffers with low effectiveness can be cheaper to install than Riparian buffers with high effectiueness.
Footnotes
Megumi Nakao is a graduate student in the Department of Environmental and Natural Resource Economics, University of Rhode Island. Brent Sohngen is Assistant Professor in the Department of Agricultural, Environmental, and Development Economics at The Ohio State University.
- Copyright 2000 by the Soil and Water Conservation Society
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