@article{Anastasiadis:260072,
      recid = {260072},
      author = {Anastasiadis, Simon  and Kerr, Suzi  and Nauleau,  Marie-Laure  and Cox, Tim  and Rutherford, Kit },
      title = {Does complex hydrology require complex water quality  policy?},
      journal = {Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics},
      address = {2014-01-01},
      number = {428-2017-1094},
      year = {2014},
      abstract = {Nonpoint-source water pollution is frequently considered  intractable because it is hard to regulate large numbers of  small sources and because the science associated with  assessing the impact of each source is complex. New Zealand  has demonstrated that it is possible to implement a simple  cap-and-trade system to help reduce nitrogen leaching from  many small farms and thereby protect water quality. This  paper relates to the second challenge: are complex  regulatory systems worthwhile when nitrogen delivery is  complex? When nitrogen moves through groundwater to a lake,  leaching from different farms reaches the lake at different  times and the damage caused is temporally differentiated.  Policy that regulates farmers according to the timing of  their nitrogen delivery will be more complex than policy  that does not. Whether the gain in efficiency justifies  this additional complexity can be assessed through  modelling. We use an integrated model to estimate the gains  from complex nitrogen regulation that incorporates  groundwater delivery times relative to simple nitrogen  regulation that does not. We find that the gains from more  complex regulation are small in the catchment we study and  cannot justify the additional complexity required. A  sensitivity analysis enables us to identify the types of  catchments where complex regulation may be worthwhile.},
      url = {http://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/260072},
      doi = {https://doi.org/10.22004/ag.econ.260072},
}