Reducing emissions is not the only way to control agricultural pollution; containing the movement of emissions is another. Theoretical and empirical analyses show that combining containment with discharge reductions can substantially reduce the costs of total and marginal abatement. This justifies more ambitious abatement objectives but will require coordinated action by landowners. Achieving this coordination is a major challenge of agricultural pollution control programs.

Complex mathematical simulation models are generally used for quantitative measurement of the fate of agricultural chemicals in soil. But it is less efficient to use them directly for regional water quality assessments because of the large number of simulations required to cover the entire region and because the entire set of simulation runs must be repeated for each new policy. To make regional water quality impact assessment on a timely basis, a simplified technique called metamodeling is suggested. A metamodel summarizes the inputoutput relationships in a complex simulation model designed to mimic actual processes such as groundwater leaching. Metamodels are constructed and validated to predict groundwater and surface water concentrations of major corn and sorghum herbicides in the Corn Belt and Lake States regions of the United States. The usefulness of metamodeling in the evaluation of agricultural nonpoint pollution policies is illustrated using an integrated environmental economic modeling system. For the baseline scenario, we estimate that 1.2% of the regional soils will lead to groundwater detection of atrazine exceeding 0.12 Mg/L, which compares well with the findings of an Environmental Protection Agency monitoring survey. The results suggest no-till practices could significantly reduce surface water concentration and a water quality policy, such as an atrazine ban, could increase soil erosion despite the conservation compliance provisions. Complex mathematical simulation models are generally used for quantitative measurement of the fate of agricultural chemicals in soil. But it is less efficient to use them directly for regional water quality assessments because of the large number of simulations required to cover the entire region and because the entire set of simulation runs must be repeated for each new policy. To make regional water quality impact assessment on a timely basis, a simplified technique called metamodeling is suggested. A metamodel summarizes the input-output relationships in a complex simulation model designed to mimic actual processes such as groundwater leaching. Metamodels are constructed and validated to predict groundwater and surface water concentrations of major corn and sorghum herbicides in the Corn Belt and Lake States regions of the United States. The usefulness of metamodeling in the evaluation of agricultural nonpoint pollution policies is illustrated using an integrated environmental economic modeling system. For the baseline scenario, we estimate that 1.2% of the regional soils will lead to groundwater detection of atrazine exceeding 0.12 •g/L, which compares well with the findings of an Environmental Protection Agency monitoring survey. The results suggest no-till practices could significantly reduce surface water concentration and a water quality policy, such as an atrazine ban, could increase soil erosion despite the conservation compliance provisions.

This paper presents a new approach to modeling, analyzing, and solving a class of environmental control problems dealing with sediment deposition. An efficient dynamic programming algorithm is designed to handle the spatial characteristics of soil movement through a watershed, and its ultimate impact on water channels and/or reservoirs. The model generates "sediment abatement cost frontiers" which summarize the trade-off information needed for watershed planning and management. This information can also be used to identify and target special-problem areas. The paper presents both results on the efficiency of the DP algorithm compared to other methods, and results on the application of the model to real world cases.pollution, watershed, agriculture

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Green growth is a relatively new concept aimed at focusing attention on achieving sustainable development through the efficient use of environmental assets without slowing economic growth. This paper presents a real-world application of the concept, and identifies viable policy options for achieving a complementary environmental regulatory framework that minimizes output and employment losses. The analysis utilizes macro level data from the Turkish economy, and develops an applied general equilibrium model to assess the impact of a selected number of green policy instruments and public policy intervention mechanisms, including market-based incentives designed to accelerate technology adoption and achieve higher employment and sustainable growth patterns. Overall, our results indicate that an integrated employment and urban greening policy strategy that combines a green jobs programme with a set of earmarked tax-cum-innovation policies towards R&D-driven growth, mainly targeted to strategic industrial sectors and agriculture, developing market economies can achieve significant reductions in gaseous emissions and urban waste while maintaining significant gains in productivity and employment. © 2014, Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg