Water quality trading is continually being explored and implemented to improve water quality in many parts of the world. They are being used to cost-effectively reduce point and/or non-point source obligations to meet water quality goals such as nutrient discharge limits. A comparison between...

Choosing a mechanism to encourage landholders to change their land management in order to deliver environmental outcomes is a complicated process. Careful instrument selection may count for little if uptake and adoption are insufficient to meet performance targets. Similarly, investors may...

Despite the importance of the agricultural and downstream processing sectors in the New Zealand economy, there is no tradition of using partial or general equilibrium models to evaluate policies or other measures directed at the agricultural sector. Policy-makers have instead relied on the...

This paper uses responses from a regional farmer survey that identify farmers’ perceptions of environmental policies to calibrate a catchment-level environmental economic model (NZ-FARM) to estimate the impacts of a nutrient reduction policy in North Canterbury, New Zealand. The model...

Regional councils throughout New Zealand are in the process of drawing up plans to enable them to meet the requirements of the Resource Management Act and the National Policy Statement on freshwater. Some councils are working on targets for nutrient leaching at the catchment level and are...

Lake Hume is a significant water storage located at the headwaters of the River Murray. It provides irrigation water, urban water supplies, flood mitigation and recreational benefits to a large and economically significant region. Water quality in Lake Hume has recently been the subject of...

Agricultural and forestry GHG emissions are a key feature of New Zealand’s emissions profile, and New Zealand is the only country, to date, to have indicated that agricultural and forestry emissions will be covered under their domestic climate policy – the New Zealand Emissions Trading...

Efficient investment in salinity mitigation requires an understanding of how different landscapes respond to alternative land and water use options at both a regional and a broader scale. A simulation modeling framework that integrates the relationships between land use, vegetation cover,...

To achieve water quality targets, management practice change in the sugar cane industry has been a large focus for natural resource management initiatives such as Reef Plan and Reef Rescue. Considerable public funds have been targeted at landholders to change on-ground management practices....

This paper explores how to enhance the role for academic research (natural sciences, economics and their integration; and stakeholder management) within the development and implementation of water quality policy in New Zealand. Our focus is on the use of market based instruments and particularly...