This paper clarifies how the benefits and costs of water quality improvements in Lake Rotorua are likely to be shared in the absence of a trading system; presents different perspectives on and principles for deciding how costs should be allocated; and then shows how different options for initially...

Water quality in Lake Rotorua has been declining for at least the last 30 years as increased levels of nutrients have entered the lake. Despite significant effort and expenditure, the level of nutrients entering the lake still exceeds sustainable levels. A nutrient trading system would help the...

A nutrient trading system is one mechanism that is currently being considered to control and reduce nutrient loss into Lake Rotorua. However this may not be the best mechanism for controlling nutrient loss from all sources. A more comprehensive system improves efficiency and decreases market...

A number of decisions need to be made when setting up a nutrient trading system including defining a target, allocating allowances and setting up a monitoring system. To ensure that the nutrient trading system implemented operates in harmony with existing regulation, existing work and...

For a nutrient trading system to achieve the desired environmental outcome, or goal, this outcome needs to be translated into nutrient flows and allowances. To connect the nutrient loss provided for under the allowances with the environmental goal, a number of decisions need to be made. These...

New Zealand is a world leader in the use of Individual Transferable Quota (ITQ) to manage fisheries. Although the use of an ITQ system is not unique to New Zealand, no other country has used this system to the same extent as New Zealand. This has meant that, internationally, a lot of interest...

Declining water quality as a result of increased nutrient leaching is a serious and growing concern, both internationally and in New Zealand. Water pollution issues have traditionally been addressed with command-and-control type regulation, but market-based nutrient trading schemes are becoming...

This paper examines six different approaches to nutrient management, and simulates the economic costs and environmental impacts associated with them using NManager, a partial equilibrium simulation model developed by Motu and NIWA, the National Institute for Water and Atmospheric Research. We...

New Zealand’s per capita greenhouse gas emissions are usually calculated by taking total emissions as reported under the Kyoto Protocol or the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and simply dividing by population. However this focuses on emissions associated with production...

This paper documents the development of new land-use intensity and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions modules for the Land Use in Rural New Zealand (LURNZ) model. These modules translate simulated land-use outcomes into measures of rural economic activity and greenhouse gas emissions for dairy...