Browsing by Subject "water quality trading"

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    A Review of the Use of Early-Action Incentives in U.S. Environmental Markets
    (2016-09-20) Galik, Christopher; Olander, Lydia
    Early action can refer to activities undertaken prior to a regulatory program or the generation of a particular service before its use to mitigate an impact elsewhere. In U.S. environmental markets, early action can result in multiple benefits. One benefit is facilitation of market function by helping to generate a sufficient supply of viable, low-cost credits to buyers and gain momentum in new markets. Another benefit is providing advance mitigation, which can speed the delivery of ecosystem services. As markets emerge and mature, early action can help reduce lags in environmental performance, improve outcomes, and encourage innovation in mitigation approaches. Multiple tools have been proposed for encouraging early action in ecosystem services markets. To varying extents, these tools have also been deployed, providing valuable experience and insight into their functioning. This paper presents several case studies of how these tools have been used in wetland and stream mitigation, species and habitat banking, greenhouse gas emissions reduction and sequestration, and water quality trading. It finds that early action incentives necessary to motivate sellers differ from those necessary to motivate buyers and that interventions should account for this reality. The tool or approach best suited to encourage early action may also vary as conditions change and new barriers arise. Anecdotal evidence suggests the potential for benefits to accrue from early action, but additional data on the costs and benefits of early action are needed to inform the selection and implementation of specific tools. A revised version of the paper appears in the journal Land Use Policy.
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    Incorporating Environmental Integrity in Water Quality Trading: Lessons from the Willamette
    (2008-04-25T20:19:15Z) Hosterman, Heather
    In Oregon’s Willamette Basin a group of diverse leaders are working to expand an existing water quality-trading program from the Willamette’s Tualatin Watershed to the entire Basin, with a goal of moving beyond regulatory compliance to meet the ecological needs of the entire landscape. In increasing the scale of the existing water quality-trading program and meeting the ecological goals of the program, two concerns have arisen: (1) assuring that restoration activities generating water quality credits are credible and contribute to ecosystem recovery, while (2) maintaining adequate participation of non-point sources willing to supply credits of high environmental quality. Using a qualitative analysis, my research examines the two primary concerns of scaling up a water quality-trading program to the landscape level. Through focus group sessions, I examine how conservation practitioners believe ecological and environmental quality should be incorporated into a large-scale water quality-trading program. Through semi-structured interviews with agricultural landowners in the Basin, I gain insight into their motives for participating in a water quality-trading program and how environmental quality standards affect their willingness to participate. This analysis results in the classic economic trade off between market simplicity and assurances for environmental integrity. The results indicate that initially a water quality-trading program should be perceived as simple and straightforward in order to generate robust participation. Once there is adequate nonpoint source participation, environmental integrity standards or economic incentives can be incorporated into a market to target ecologically significant areas within a landscape or high environmental quality restoration and conservation actions.
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    Managing Risk in Environmental Markets
    (2016-02-01) Olander, Lydia