Targeting farms to improve water quality

摘要

Voluntary programs to improve the quality of surface and subsurface water affected by agriculture should target the farms that have an economic incentive to adopt management systems with water quality benefits. We propose a method that can identify such opportunities within a region by linking a field scale simulation model, a multiobjective decision model, and a pair of farm-scale constrained optimization models. The simulation model estimates the effect of alternative management systems on the quantities of pollutants leaving individual fields and on economic returns. The multiobjective decision model uses site specific economic and technical information to score and rank the alternative management systems. An optimization model is solved to select the set of management systems which are most economically advantageous to the farmer. A second, similar optimization model is solved to select the set of management systems of interest to society considering offsite water quality issues. Farms which have economic incentives to adopt management systems with water quality benefits can be identified and targeted by extension agents or policy makers.