Kurt Schwabe - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

Papers by Kurt Schwabe

The statements and conclusions in this Report are those of the contractor and not necessarily tho... more The statements and conclusions in this Report are those of the contractor and not necessarily those of the California Air Resources Board. The mention of commercial products, their source, or their use in connection with material reported herein is not to be construed as actual or implied endorsement of such products.

Environmental and Resource Economics, 2004

Land, Sep 15, 2021

This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative... more This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY

This study investigates the effect of introducing a fiscally neutral increasing block-rate water ... more This study investigates the effect of introducing a fiscally neutral increasing block-rate water budget price structure on residential water demand. We estimate that demand was reduced by at least 18 percent, although the reduction was achieved gradually over more than three years. As intermediate steps the study derives estimates of price and income elasticities that rely only on longitudinal variability. We investigate how different subpopulations responded to the pricing change and find evidence that marginal, rather than average, prices may be driving consumption. Additionally, we derive alternative rate structures that might have been implemented, and assess the estimated demand effects of those rate structures.

Nature Sustainability

Municipal water managers are intensifying efforts to reduce urban water use and increase the reli... more Municipal water managers are intensifying efforts to reduce urban water use and increase the reliability of local water supplies to combat rising water scarcity and drought. Incentivizing increases in water-use efficiency and mandating conservation are two strategies to rein in demand. Concurrently, local water supplies are being augmented through investments in reclaiming and treating municipal wastewater. Although reducing urban water consumption is necessary to deal with population growth and a more variable climate, it does come at a cost. In particular, cutting back on indoor water consumption impacts the generation and quality of wastewater, which can have widespread and underappreciated consequences on human society and the environment. Here, to quantify these impacts, we tracked monthly effluent flow, salinity levels and the properties of 34 wastewater treatment plants throughout Southern California from 2013 to 2017—a period that included extreme drought and abundant precipitation. Our analysis demonstrates that conservation measures significantly reduced effluent flow and increased effluent salinity ( P value ≤ 0.05). Our findings further highlight the need for policymakers to recognize the interdependencies and complexities within a water system. While many regions are striving to reduce water consumption, this Article examines the side effects and downstream impacts on wastewater quality for human and ecosystem health.

Water

Efforts to address water scarcity have traditionally relied on changing the spatial and temporal ... more Efforts to address water scarcity have traditionally relied on changing the spatial and temporal availability of water through water importation, storage, and conveyance. More recently, water managers have invested heavily in improving water use efficiency and conservation. Yet as new supply options become harder to find and/or appropriate, and demand hardens, society must consider other options to, if not reduce scarcity, minimize the impacts of such scarcity. This paper explores the role water markets are playing in addressing water scarcity in the American southwest: a water-limited arid and semi-arid region characterized by significant population growth rates relative to the rest of the US. Focusing on three representative southwestern states—Arizona, California, and Texas—we begin by highlighting how trends in water supply allocations from different water sources (e.g., surface water, groundwater, and wastewater) and water demand by different water users (e.g., agricultural, mu...

American Journal of Agricultural Economics

Increasing aridity, more frequent and intense drought, and greater degrees of water scarcity crea... more Increasing aridity, more frequent and intense drought, and greater degrees of water scarcity create unique challenges for agriculture. In response to these challenges, which often manifest themselves as lower and more variable surface water supplies, as well as depleted and degraded ground water supplies, growers tend to seek opportunities to adapt. One option for growers to reduce their exposure to water scarcity and heightened uncertainty is to diversify. Indeed, access to a portfolio of supplies is one way in which water and irrigation districts, as well as individual growers, are responding to the changing landscape of water resource availability. This article evaluates the benefits to irrigated agriculture from having access to multiple sources of water. With farm-level information on 1,900 agricultural parcels across California, we use the hedonic property value method to investigate the extent that growers benefit from having access to multiple sources of water (i.e., a water portfolio). Our results suggest that while lower quality waters, less reliable water, and less water all negatively impact agricultural land values, holding a water portfolio has a positive impact on land values through its role in mitigating the negative aspects of these factors and reducing the sensitivity of agriculture to climate-related factors. From a policy perspective, such results identify a valuable adaptation tool that irrigation districts may consider to help offset the negative impacts of climate change, drought, and population increases on water supply availability and reliability.

Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics

This is the author manuscript accepted for publication and has undergone full peer review but has... more This is the author manuscript accepted for publication and has undergone full peer review but has not been through the copyediting, typesetting, pagination and proofreading process, which may lead to differences between this version and the Version of Record. Please cite this article as

Water Economics and Policy, 2016

Economic analyses of regional irrigated agricultural production typically make little distinction... more Economic analyses of regional irrigated agricultural production typically make little distinction between perennial and annual crops despite the distinctive characteristics of perennials. Such factors include high planting costs, lags in production, long lifespan, and potentially long-lasting impacts of input use and weather shocks. This study establishes a fully dynamic model of irrigated perennial crop production in a regional context where annuals are also grown. Perennial crop area is modeled as a vintage capital stock with age-dependent yields. The model is applied to the Riverland region of South Australia to examine the possible effects of both temporary and permanent changes in water supplies and the establishment of water prices, which is then used to estimate agricultural water demand. The model demonstrates that annuals are fallowed during drought so that perennial crops may be preserved and how, due to the fixed costs of re-planting perennials, annual crops are used to s...

Environmental science & technology, Sep 19, 2016

Water scarcity has become a critical problem in many semiarid and arid regions. The single larges... more Water scarcity has become a critical problem in many semiarid and arid regions. The single largest water use in such regions is for crop irrigation, which typically relies on groundwater and surface water sources. With increasing stress on these traditional water sources, it is important to consider alternative irrigation sources for areas with limited freshwater resources. One potential irrigation water resource is treated wastewater for agricultural fields located near urban centers. In addition, treated wastewater can contribute an appreciable amount of necessary nutrients for plants. The suitability of reclaimed water for specific applications depends on water quality and usage requirements. The main factors that determine the suitability of recycled water for agricultural irrigation are salinity, heavy metals, and pathogens, which cause adverse effects on human, plants, and soils. In this paper, we develop a regional water reuse decision-support model (RWRM) using the general a...

Pacific Rim Research Program, Aug 15, 2006

This study assesses an array of physiochemical soil properties from a sample of rubber smallholdi... more This study assesses an array of physiochemical soil properties from a sample of rubber smallholdings managed by a group of Orang Asli (original people) in northwest Pahang, Peninsular Malaysia. Malaysian smallholders in general face significantly lower productivity levels than the large rubber estates and plantations (Malaysian Rubber Board, 2002). Among smallholders, Orang Asli households generate the lowest rubber yields, earn the lowest non-rubber income, and are most threatened by land scarcity (RISDA, 2003). Furthermore, little is known about the soils of these smallholdings since most rubber-related soil surveys focus on estates and experiment stations (Pushparajah & Amin, 1977). An understanding of the morphological and physiochemical soil properties of Orang Asli rubber fields is a crucial step toward the efficient allocation of government resources that aim to enhance productivity, promote sustainable agriculture, and improve household welfare. The objectives of this project were to (1) determine the predominant physiochemical characteristics of these soils, (2) evaluate them with an established rubber suitability classification system, (3) group soils according to region, geomorphic position, and estimated soil series in order to make generalizations about soil limitations for certain soil types, and (4) offer methods by which to mitigate the effects of these limitations. We find that there is a great deal of heterogeneity within our sample with regard to both soil type and limitation. The most common physical limitations were related to flooding, uprooting, soil texture, and slope. Almost all soils were severely depleted in organic nutrients and base cations. Overall, these limitations were correctable via drainage, terracing, or establishment of a cover crop. It is recommended that any application of chemical fertilizer take soil type into account.

This article evaluates irrigated agriculture sector response and resultant economic impacts of cl... more This article evaluates irrigated agriculture sector response and resultant economic impacts of climate change for a part of the Murray Darling Basin in Australia. A water balance model is used to predict reduced basin inflows for mild, moderate and severe climate change scenarios involving 10, 20, 40 Celcius warming, and predict 13%, 38% and 63% reduced inflows. Impact on irrigated agricultural production and profitability are estimated with a mathematical programming model using a two-stage approach that simulanteously estimates short and long-run adjustments. The model accounts for a range of adaptive responses including: deficit irrigation, temporarily fallowing some areas, and permanently reducing irrigated area and changing the mix of crops. The results suggest that relatively low cost adaptation strategies are available for moderate reduction in water availability and thus costs of such reduction are likely to be relatively small. In more severe climate change scenarios greater costs are estimated, adaptations predicted include a reduction in total area irrigated, investments in efficient irrigation, and a shift away from perennial to annual crops as the latter can be managed more profitably when water allocations in some years are very low.

Land Economics, 2014

The authors thank the Eastern Municipal Water District of southern California for providing resea... more The authors thank the Eastern Municipal Water District of southern California for providing research funding and access to the water consumption and pricing data, Elizabeth Lovsted and Kristian Barrett of EMWD for help with interpreting and augmenting the dataset, and Erik Duran and Diti Chatterjee for essential database management. Any remaining errors are the authors' responsibilities.

2002 Annual Meeting July 28 31 Long Beach Ca, Feb 1, 2002

Downloadable! Drainwater management strategies include source control, reuse, treatment, and evap... more Downloadable! Drainwater management strategies include source control, reuse, treatment, and evaporation ponds; questions of interest are efficient management, policy instruments, and sustainability. A high level of source control is indicated absent reuse due to the relatively ...

Advocates of regulatory reform often assert that incentive based (IB) environmental policies will... more Advocates of regulatory reform often assert that incentive based (IB) environmental policies will reduce costs of compliance to one-tenth (or less) what would be experienced with conventional regulatory schemes (e.g. so called command and control (CAC) measures). 1 The early evidence marshaled to support these judgments is taken from Tietenberg [1985]. His summary compared the costs estimated from models describing different hypothesized CAC schemes to least cost policies. 2 More recently, prices from the sulfur dioxide permit trading program have been compared with the initial estimates of the incremental costs of control to offer similarly dramatic conclusions. 3 Unfortunately, neither type of comparison permits a judgment on what can be expected from using incentive based policies under an array of different actual conditions. This paper uses an evaluation of the "new frontier" of IB policies-non-point source pollution-to consider how these policies should be evaluated and, in the process, to develop conceptual and empirical evidence supporting four specific observations about the cost savings attributed to IB policies. First, as already suggested, there is little consistent evidence in the literature on the actual savings in compliance costs from IB strategies. Most of what we think we know is derived from models. Second, none of the summaries of these IB/CAC cost comparisons 1 These judgments were clearly a part of the EPA/DOE essential evaluation of the costs of meeting global restrictions on CO 2. The 1998 Economic Report of the President suggested that ".. .even in comparison with a system with full domestic trading of emission permits, international trading could substantially lower costs. Some models predict that the incremental cost of reducing CO 2 emission may be as little as one-seventh of the cost of reductions from domestic trading alone" (p. 170, emphasis added). EPA estimates the annual cost saving from the SO 2 program to be one billion dollars (Stavins [forthcoming]). 2 Tietenberg [1985] (pp. 68-69) reports ratios of CAC to IB for the emission permit trading systems and models involving air pollutants ranging from .42 to 11.10. Schwabe [1996] (pp. 58-59) considered the sources of differences in costs with waterborne pollutants that also varied. However, in this case the definition of costs as well as the structure of the model was considered as sources for the difference in results (in addition to the likely differences in actual circumstances for the areas being modeled).