When used in conjunction with surface water for irrigation, groundwater serves two roles: to increase water supply; and to mitigate fluctuations in the supply of water. The later is the buffer role. This paper identifies and evaluates the economic benefit associated with the buffer role of...

Uncertainty enters the dynamic tradeoffs of environmental and natural resource management in a variety of ways and forms. In this chapter we review the various sources of uncertainty, the methodologies developed to account for them and implications regarding management of environmental and...

This paper uses mechanism design theory to (i) propose a mechanism to price irrigation water when farmers are heterogeneous in their production technologies (adverse selection) and their individual water uses are unobserved (moral hazard) and (ii) discusses briefly when such a mechanism might be...

We characterize the dynamics of energy markets in which energy is derived from polluting (fossil) and clean (solar) resources. The analysis is based on geometric optimal control considerations. An important feature of solar energy technologies is that their cost of supply is predominantly due to...