Modelling the Economic Impact of Environmental Flow Policies on the Macquarie Regional Economy

Tissa Yatawara and Ian Millward-Brown

No 136836, 1997 Conference (41st), January 22-24, 1997, Gold Coast, Australia from Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society

Abstract: New South Wales Government's 1995 water reform proposals included several environmental flow policies aimed at improving water quality and the river ecosystems. In evaluating these policies a number of different river flow objectives were considered some of which resulted in a reduction in the water availability for irrigated agriculture. This paper discusses the methodology and modelling framework adopted to analyze the economic impacts of environmental flow policies on the Macquarie regional economy of NSW. An economic model (Catchment Economic Impact Model) was developed to estimate these impacts. This model combines hydrology, simulation, spreadsheet and linear programming applications. The objective function of the linear programming model is to maximize the total gross margins for the region. Constraints include prices, costs, land, labour, and water availability. The model provides economic impacts in the format of descriptive statistics of total gross margin, total irrigated regional gross margin, present value of total regional gross margin over a 30 year period and changes in crop areas under different environmental flow objectives. Four different river flow objectives represented by six hydrology scenarios were considered in this analysis. The results of the preliminary analysis of these objectives are also discussed in this paper.

Keywords: Environmental; Economics; and; Policy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 13
Date: 1997
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/136836/files/fiche015-report126.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ags:aare97:136836

DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.136836

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in 1997 Conference (41st), January 22-24, 1997, Gold Coast, Australia from Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by AgEcon Search (aesearch@umn.edu).