TY - JOUR
T1 - Five financial incentives to revive the Gulf of Mexico dead zone and Mississippi basin soils
AU - Tallis, Heather
AU - Polasky, Stephen
AU - Hellmann, Jessica
AU - Springer, Nathaniel P.
AU - Biske, Rich
AU - DeGeus, Dave
AU - Dell, Randal
AU - Doane, Michael
AU - Downes, Lisa
AU - Goldstein, Josh
AU - Hodgman, Tom
AU - Johnson, Kris
AU - Luby, Ian
AU - Pennington, Derric
AU - Reuter, Michael
AU - Segerson, Kathleen
AU - Stark, Isis
AU - Stark, John
AU - Vollmer-Sanders, Carrie
AU - Weaver, Sarah Kate
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2018 Elsevier Ltd
PY - 2019/3/1
Y1 - 2019/3/1
N2 - A central challenge in the Mississippi River Basin is how to continue to support profitable agricultural production, provide water supply, flood control, transportation, and other benefits, while reducing the current burden of environmental degradation. Several practices have been shown to reduce nutrient runoff and water pollution, and improve soil fertility, while often yielding profits for farmers. Yet many of these beneficial practices remain underutilized. Participants at an expert workshop identified five candidate financial mechanisms that could increase adoption of these beneficial farming practices in four focal Midwest states in the next five years: crop insurance premium subsidies, transformation of the private service provider business model, expansion and targeting of 2019 U.S. Farm Bill funding, development of new state funds, and direction of post-disaster federal funds towards habitat restoration, particularly in floodplains. This study provides rough approximations of the change in nutrient runoff and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, the annualized costs, and the nutrient and GHG reductions per dollar likely to result from deployment of each financial mechanism. Based upon these approximations, the adoption of these programs could reduce annual nitrate flows at the outlet of the Ohio and Upper Mississippi River Basins by 25%, surpassing the intermediate 2025 target (20% reduction) and achieving more than half of the long-term target (45% reduction) set by the Mississippi River/Gulf of Mexico Hypoxia Task Force. These approximations also illustrate that these five mechanisms could provide the same GHG reductions (∼43 Tg CO2e yr−1) as taking 12 coal-fired energy plants offline. The total cost of these five financial mechanisms is estimated at ∼$2.6 billion, or 64 g of nitrates and ∼17 kg of CO2e per dollar spent. These proposed solutions all face political, financial, cultural or institutional challenges, but with industry support, creative political action, and continued communication of both private and public benefits, they can create meaningful nutrient reductions and rebuild soils by 2022.
AB - A central challenge in the Mississippi River Basin is how to continue to support profitable agricultural production, provide water supply, flood control, transportation, and other benefits, while reducing the current burden of environmental degradation. Several practices have been shown to reduce nutrient runoff and water pollution, and improve soil fertility, while often yielding profits for farmers. Yet many of these beneficial practices remain underutilized. Participants at an expert workshop identified five candidate financial mechanisms that could increase adoption of these beneficial farming practices in four focal Midwest states in the next five years: crop insurance premium subsidies, transformation of the private service provider business model, expansion and targeting of 2019 U.S. Farm Bill funding, development of new state funds, and direction of post-disaster federal funds towards habitat restoration, particularly in floodplains. This study provides rough approximations of the change in nutrient runoff and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, the annualized costs, and the nutrient and GHG reductions per dollar likely to result from deployment of each financial mechanism. Based upon these approximations, the adoption of these programs could reduce annual nitrate flows at the outlet of the Ohio and Upper Mississippi River Basins by 25%, surpassing the intermediate 2025 target (20% reduction) and achieving more than half of the long-term target (45% reduction) set by the Mississippi River/Gulf of Mexico Hypoxia Task Force. These approximations also illustrate that these five mechanisms could provide the same GHG reductions (∼43 Tg CO2e yr−1) as taking 12 coal-fired energy plants offline. The total cost of these five financial mechanisms is estimated at ∼$2.6 billion, or 64 g of nitrates and ∼17 kg of CO2e per dollar spent. These proposed solutions all face political, financial, cultural or institutional challenges, but with industry support, creative political action, and continued communication of both private and public benefits, they can create meaningful nutrient reductions and rebuild soils by 2022.
KW - Beneficial practices
KW - Dead zone
KW - Financial incentives
KW - GHG reductions
KW - Mississippi river basin
KW - Nitrate reductions
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U2 - 10.1016/j.jenvman.2018.11.140
DO - 10.1016/j.jenvman.2018.11.140
M3 - Article
C2 - 30554022
AN - SCOPUS:85059334295
SN - 0301-4797
VL - 233
SP - 30
EP - 38
JO - Journal of Environmental Management
JF - Journal of Environmental Management
ER -