Agricultural and Biosystems Engineering Publications
Title
Financial comparison of seven nitrate reduction strategies for Midwestern agricultural drainage
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
10-2013
Journal or Book Title
Water Resources and Economics
Volume
2-3
First Page
30
Last Page
56
DOI
10.1016/j.wre.2013.09.001
Abstract
Much work has been invested in the development of practices and technologies that reduce nitrate losses from agricultural drainage in the US Midwest. While each individual practice can be valuable, the effectiveness will be site specific and the acceptability of each approach will differ between producers. To enhance decision making in terms of water quality practices, this work created average cost effectiveness parameters for seven nitrate management strategies (controlled drainage, wetlands, denitrification bioreactors, nitrogen management rate and timing, cover crops, and crop rotation). For each practice, available published cost information was used to develop a farm-level financial model that assessed establishment and maintenance costs as well as examined financial effects of potential yield impacts. Then, each practice's cost values were combined with literature review of N reduction (% N load reduction), which allowed comparison of these seven practices in terms of cost effectiveness (dollars per kg N removed). At −$14 and −$1.60 kg N−1 yr−1, springtime nitrogen application and nitrogen application rate reduction were the most cost effective practices. The in-field vegetative practices of cover crop and crop rotation were the least cost effective (means: $55 and $43 kg N−1 yr−1, respectively). With means of less than $3 kg N−1 yr−1, controlled drainage, wetlands, and bioreactors were fairly comparable with each other. While no individual technology or management approach will be capable of addressing drainage water quality concerns in entirety, this analysis provides measures of average cost effectiveness across these seven strategies that allows direct comparison.
Access
Open
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Copyright Owner
Elsevier B.V.
Copyright Date
2013
Language
en
File Format
application/pdf
Recommended Citation
Christianson, Laura E.; Tyndall, John C.; and Helmers, Matthew J., "Financial comparison of seven nitrate reduction strategies for Midwestern agricultural drainage" (2013). Agricultural and Biosystems Engineering Publications. 595.
https://lib.dr.iastate.edu/abe_eng_pubs/595
Included in
Agriculture Commons, Bioresource and Agricultural Engineering Commons, Natural Resource Economics Commons, Water Resource Management Commons
Comments
This article is from Water Resources and Economics 2-3 (2013): 30–56, doi:10.1016/j.wre.2013.09.001.